Nov. 18, 2021

As far back as 2019, it was estimated that every minute, people around the world buy one million plastic drinking bottles, totaling almost 1.5 billion plastic bottles a day and more than 500 billion bottles a year.

Since we live on a planet that is home to about 7.8 billion people, a rough calculation of the figures above would show that there are 64 times as many bottles as there are humans on Earth. To make it worse, plastic production keeps soaring higher in spite of environmental concerns.

Plastic production is a significant driver of the climate crisis. Research has it that if the lifecycle of plastics were a country, it would be the fifth-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world after China, the United States, India, and Russia.

Approximately 75% of the plastic bottles produced go unrecycled; and most of them end up in landfills, litter roadsides, and pollute waterways and oceans. The complexity in the lifecycle of plastics can also impact environmental and human health.

For instance, it takes about 450 years for a plastic bottle to decompose and even at that, it is nearly impossible for nature to totally break it down. Tiny remnant plastics end up ingested by animals or fish who mistake them for food and some may eventually find their way onto our dinner plates. Shocking, not so?

A lot has been said about the dangers plastic pollution cause to the environment. However, many are not aware that the production of plastic bottles is a significant driver of the climate crisis as 99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels.

Although world leaders pledged net-zero by 2030, 2050, 2070, and so forth, yet it was not mentioned how they intend to clamp down on single-use plastic production since it is expected to account for more than 10% of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

When the issue of plastic pollution comes up, end users are usually the most blamed. For a fact, not many people know or care where their plastic waste finds its resting place. And those who cannot avoid seeing plastic trash clog waterways and ruin the ocean may not fully understand the gravity of the pollution and its aftermath.

While consumers need to be more responsible with their plastic waste, the bulk of the whole process lies on manufacturers. I mean, why blame end users when companies have failed to design their products or packaging with sustainability in mind.

The onus is on manufacturers to look at all stages in the lifecycle of plastic products, from the production stage, through use, to disposal. Globally, the soft drink and beverage industry is the most culpable of plastic pollution considering that companies talk a big game but fail to deliver on their promises.

In 2019, a hundred and fifty international organizations signed up to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s global commitment to tackle plastic pollution. As part of the agreement, they would disclose how much plastic packaging they create for transparency sake.

Coca-Cola revealed that it produces 3m tons of plastic packaging a year. This is equivalent to 200,000 bottles a minute and 108bn bottles a year. Nestlé disclosed it puts out 1.7m tonnes of plastic packaging annually, and Unilever 610,000 tons.

Biggest polluters: new plastics economy global commitment PepsiCo, alongside the majority of the 150 companies that signed the Ellen MacArthur Foundation agreement, refused to publicly disclose figures on their own plastic packaging production. It did not end there.

What research shows
A 2020 report published by Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) named Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestlé as top polluters. Per the report, Coca-Cola produced 2,981,421 metric tons (mT) of plastic which amounts to 14,907,105 mT of CO2 emissions, that is, an equivalent to 3,241,996 passenger vehicles driven for one year.

By far the biggest polluter, Coca-Cola’s beverage bottles- 13,834 of them- were found most frequently, discarded on beaches, rivers, parks, and other litter sites in 51 of the 55 countries surveyed. Close on its heels were PepsiCo beverage bottles on 5,155 and Nestlé on 8,633.

As we draw closer to the end of 2021, Break Free From Plastic has again published its brand audit report. In the audit, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, Mondelēz International, Philip Morris International, Danone, Mars Inc., and Colgate-Palmolive are listed as the top plastic-polluting corporations of 2021.

Having made voluntary commitments to collect one bottle for every one sold as part of its World Without Waste initiative which launched in 2018, the Coca-Cola company continues to hold the dubious title as the world’s top polluter year after year.

It would not be out of place to say that the company’s pledge has little to no impact on the environmental pollution it is helping to create.

With annual revenue of 33 billion dollars (based on 2020 data), Coca-Cola company owns hundreds of brands like Fanta, Sprite, Schweppes, and 55 brands of bottled water which are sold in almost every continent. The soft drink giant serves 13 countries in Africa including Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia and Ghana, and Uganda.

As much as Coca-Cola claims to be working hard to solve plastic pollution through recycling, empowerment programs, and whatnots in Nigeria, available data suggests that the company has a long way to go to reduce its plastic footprint.

Going by its business and sustainability report, the soft drink giant serves 1.9 billion customers every day. Yet, since the launch of its World Without Waste Program about 3 years ago, Coca-Cola has only managed to recover 1.5 billion plastic bottles which fall short of the number of bottles it sells per day.

Travel across Nigeria’s cities, towns, and peri-urban areas, you will find discarded Coca-Cola beverage bottles by the roadside, on beaches, rivers, parks, and in landfill sites. And when it rains, floodwaters flush an obscene amount of bottles into open gutters and drainages.

On double standards and hypocrisy
Over the years, multinational corporations have been guilty of double standards. For one, they offer fully recyclable options for their brands in Global North countries while similar products sold in Global South countries come packaged in the lowest value packaging that is non-recyclable under the pretext of being pro-poor.

Case in point Coca-Cola. In February, the company announced that it will sell its beverages in bottles made from 100% recycled plastic material in the United States. No such ambition was made regarding Africa. Instead, what we have are empty promises and Coca-Cola’s half-hearted efforts to clean up their waste with full media coverage and press releases.

Marriage of pollution between FMCGs and the oil and gas sector
Here’s a not-so-fun fact: Corporations responsible for the plastic pollution crisis are also contributing to the climate crisis. How so?

An investigation carried out by Greenpeace, a global environment-focused organization based in the US, shows that big fast-moving consumer goods brands like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, Mondelēz, Danone, Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive, Procter & Gamble, and Mars source their packaging from manufacturers supplied with plastic resin or petrochemicals from well-known companies like ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron Phillips, Ineos, and Dow.

Already, the fossil fuels industry wears a dirty crown as the highest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Its partnership with the worst plastic polluters continues to worsen the world’s climate and plastic crises.

It is also confounding how Unilever has climbed up the ladder to become the #3 top plastic polluter yet served as a Principal Partner for the recently concluded COP26 climate summit. Little wonder the conference drew many criticisms.

If the code-red report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has taught us anything, it is that corporations must be held accountable for their significant contribution to the climate crisis.

For consumer goods brands and other plastic polluters, it is not enough to focus only on waste management and recycling. They need to reevaluate the full impacts of the plastic they produce- from extraction to disposal- to tackle the adverse effects of plastic production.

The way forward

Plastic-polluting corporations must show transparency and reveal their total global plastic footprint. They need to make a drastic reduction in the amount of plastic they use and set unambiguous, measurable, and trackable targets. Also important is the need to redesign their product delivery systems for a refill, reuse, and recycling purpose.

Policymakers must be a part of the solution as well. Governments around the world need to open their eyes to the environmental-degrading activities of plastic polluters and call them into account.

At the national level, governments must be intentional and go beyond merely ‘enacting regulations’ on guilty corporations to actual implementation and adequate monitoring.

Though informal waste picking may not be openly dismissed as a profession, most people do not actively seek it out as a career of choice; as much as it is by necessity.

As such, governments can invest in a just transition model with robust social protection and decent income and benefits for workers, especially waste pickers operating within the recycling, reuse, and waste management sector.

End users also have a part to play in curbing plastic pollution. Rather than chuck your beverage bottle out of your car window or throw it on the floor, you could safely deposit it in a recycling bin or find another household use for it.

Granted, personal lifestyle changes alone will not solve the plastic or climate crises. The bigger responsibility lies on producers; still, we all can collectively do what we can to avert the catastrophic effects of climate change.

Courtesy: climateaction.africa