According to the 2022 ranking of the NGO Break Free from Plastic, the brand remains the one that generates the most waste in the environment. A partnership deemed “incompatible” with the fight against climate change.
by Stéphane Mandard
And the winner is… Coca-Cola. The famous brand of sodas is designated “world champion” 2022 of plastic pollution, according to the ranking, published Tuesday, November 15, by the non -governmental organization (NGO) Break Free from Plastic. A title little envied that the American company has won hands down for the fifth year in a row since its first edition, in 2018. A distinction that is a stain while Coca-Cola is one of the sponsors of the United Nations Conference on The climate (COP27), the high mass of the fight against the climatic disruption which is held in Charm El-Cheikh, in Egypt, until November 18. “Coca-Cola, the largest plastic polluter in the world, which sponsors the COP27, is a pure” Greenwashing “” operation, denounces Emma Priestland, the Break free from Plastic.
coordinator
Each year, the NGO, which brings together several thousand associations, sends its volunteers to the four corners of the world to pick up plastic waste produced by industry and which end everywhere (beaches, rivers, parks, forests, streets …), Except in the trash. With a mission, not always obvious: identify the marks behind these trash.
In 2022, more than 31,000 products (bottles or pieces of bottles) stamped Coca-Cola were found in around forty countries. It is more than twice more than 2021 (13,834) and three times more than in 2018 (9,300). This represents 7.32 % of all the plastic waste collected (429,994) in 2022. A proportion that has doubled since the first edition of the report, in 2018, where it was 3.64 % (9,300 elements Of a total of 255,429 detritus). In five years, the volunteers of Break Free from Plastic have picked up 85,035 products from the American company, almost as much as all the waste of the other two brands which complement the podium of the largest plastic polluters: Pepsico (50,558) and Nestlé (27 008).
“It is shocking that a company as much linked to the fossil industry is a partner of a meeting as vital for the climate as COP27,” adds Emma Priestland. Ninety-nine in plastic is made from fossil fuel, and packaging is a significant outlet for the petrochemical industry. Each year, more than 100 billion plastic bottles come out of multinational factories. According to Greenpeace estimates, the production of these bottles represents nearly 15 million tonnes of emissions of co 2 , the equivalent of discharges of 3 million cars for a year.
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