Tearfund estimates that the open burning of companies’ plastic products in six focus countries spews roughly 4.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere each year.
More than half a million tonnes of plastic produced by Coca-Cola, Nestlé, PepsiCo, and Unilever is being dumped or burnt every year in just six developing countries, a new report has warned.
The study from development charity Tearfund calculated that the four brands produce enough plastic waste in developing markets to smother roughly 93 football pitches every day.
The research claims that Coca-Cola is the biggest culprit, responsible for 200,000 tonnes of plastic pollution annually.
Tearfund, which analysed the companies’ activities in China, India, the Philippines, Brazil, Mexico, and Nigeria, is now calling on the multinationals to urgently switch from single-use plastic packaging and sachets to sustainable refillable and reusable alternatives.
The charity has estimated that open burning of the plastic products in the six focus countries releases roughly 4.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere annually. At 2.5 million tonnes, emissions from burning Coca-Cola packaging eclipses the combined output of its three competitors.
The report notes that Coca-Cola is a “significant outlier” in the extent of its dependence on single-use plastic. The company relies on more than twice as much plastic per dollar of sales than next-worst offender PepsiCo, and seven times more than Unilever.
Ruth Valerio, director of global advocacy at Tearfund, said that the firms have a “moral responsibility” for the disposal of products supplied in countries that have little or no waste management capacity.
“These companies are selling plastic in the full knowledge that it will be burnt or dumped in developing countries: Scarring landscapes, contributing to climate change and harming the health of the world’s poorest people,” she said.
In 2019, all four companies committed to disclosing their global plastic footprint.
But Tearfund is calling on the companies to go further, and report the number of units of single-plastic items they buy and use on a country-by-country basis. It is also pushing the companies to halve the amount of single-use plastic they sell and use by 2025; to develop partnerships with waste pickers to create safe jobs; and to ensure that, by 2025, for every single-use plastic sold, one is collected.
Valerio added that: “At present, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever make little or no mention of emissions from the disposal of their products or packaging in their climate change commitments.”
A Coca-Cola spokesperson said: “We’re aware of the new report which raises serious concerns. We recognise that we have a responsibility to provide solutions that make plastic waste a thing of the past.”
They went on to say: “We are committed to ensuring the packaging in which we serve our products to consumers is sustainable and our efforts are focused on continuing to improve the eco-design and innovation of our packaging. As part of our World Without Waste goals, we have committed to collecting a bottle or can for each one sold by 2030, with the aim to ensure that every plastic bottle contains at least 50 per cent recycled plastic by 2030.”
A Unilever spokesperson said that the firm was taking “radical action at all points in the plastic loop… We’ve committed to halve our use of virgin plastic in our packaging in just five years and reduce our total use of plastic by more than 100,000 tonnes.” The spokesperson added: “This demands a fundamental rethink in our approach to packaging and products, and as we speak, we’re piloting different reuse and refill formats across the world, so we can test, learn and scale these solutions.”
A Nestlé spokesperson said the company was “determined to look at every option to solve the complex challenges of packaging waste”. The company is targeting 100 per cent recyclable or reusable packaging by 2025, and intends to bolster its plastic disclosure regime “in the near future” to include the number of plastic units produced.
“Nestlé will take an active role in the development of well-functioning collection, sorting and recycling schemes across the countries where we operate,” they added. “Successful recycling requires adequate infrastructure, which is currently not always in place. We have identified 17 ‘first mover’ countries where we are focusing efforts to increase recycling rates, and a further 12 countries where we are focusing on achieving plastics neutrality. The exact nature and scope of the role we play will depend on the local context.”
A PepsiCo spokesperson said that the company wants “to build a system where packaging never becomes waste. That’s why we’re working to reduce the amount of plastics we use and have set a target to, by 2025, decrease virgin plastic content across our beverage business by 35 per cent. It’s why, between July 2018 and 2019, we pledged over $51 million to global partnerships designed to boost recycling rates to support a circular economy. And it’s why we are reinventing the packaging we use by looking beyond the bottle through reusable platforms like SodaStream, which we estimate will avoid nearly 67 billion plastic bottles through 2025.”
Tearfund’s study has been praised by plastic campaigners and proponents of the circular economy alike.
Sian Sutherland, co-founder of A Plastic Planet, said Tearfund’s “excellent study” highlighted “the absolute immorality of big consumer brands pushing plastic to developing countries with little infrastructure to deal with the waste these products create”.
Broadcaster and chair of the Real Circularity Coalition, Lucy Siegle, said that the report’s findings were “deeply worrying”, warning that uncontrolled plastic waste impacts nature, makes ecosystems less resilient, and contributes to climate change.
“At this point, as the world battles a global pandemic, we demand that brands address their levels of plastic waste, invest transparently in workable solutions and stop trying to burn the evidence,” she said.
Source: Businessgreen