{"id":442,"date":"2018-09-13T12:39:45","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T10:39:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/actforyourplanet.com\/?p=442"},"modified":"2026-05-22T23:31:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T21:31:33","slug":"break-free-from-plastic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/actforyourplanet.com\/index.php\/2018\/09\/13\/break-free-from-plastic\/","title":{"rendered":"Break Free from plastic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unless companies move away from their \u00a0reliance on fossil-fuel based plastic for their products, we are looking at a climate-challenged \u00a0future awashed in plastic pollution with untold repercussions on human health and life on the planet as we know it.<\/p>\n

\"\"This massive citizen action against big corporate plastic polluters have yielded the following numbers: 187,851 pieces of plastic trash collected in 239 cleanups and audits in 42 countries across 6 continents.<\/p>\n

While our \u00a0brand audits do not provide a complete or definitive \u00a0picture of the plastic pollution footprints of companies, they provide an evidence-based \u00a0snapshot or indication of the most visible plastic polluters that people are finding in the beaches, parks, and in their own localities.<\/p>\n

The results of this latest set of brand audits are featured in our consolidated report \u00a0Branded: In Search of the World\u2019s Top Corporate Polluters vol. 1 <\/b><\/a>and they reveal that among the \u00a0world\u2019s most prolific and polluting brands are multinational companies namely Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestl\u00e9, Danone, Mondelez International, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Perfetti van Melle, Mars Incorporated, and Colgate-Palmolive.<\/p>\n

In fact, the top three companies alone (Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestl\u00e9) accounted for 14% of the branded plastic pollution found in the six regions where the audits were conducted.<\/p>\n

These same companies whose products are often packaged in throwaway, non-recyclable plastic are the same companies that have been exposed in our earlier brand audits in Southeast Asia and India. Their marketing and packaging decisions \u00a0have burdened communities and local governments with waste materials that can neither be composted or recycled. These companies are aware that most developing countries lack the resources and wherewithal to handle problematic types of plastic waste in their systems. Yet they continue to churn out the stuff along with their products, flooding markets in the global South, hoping that millennials will continue to be mesmerized by the promise of convenience that throw-away plastic represents.<\/p>\n

Instead of investing in alternative delivery systems, product redesign, or materials that avoid the problems associated with plastics to begin with, the same companies continue to push for quick fixes or controversial methods of recycling (mostly downcycling) and\/or \u00a0waste recovery (aka incineration) to promote business as usual and justify the continuing production of plastics.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

These are neither viable nor sustainable solutions, inasmuch as they only deepen our dependence on fossil fuels and reinforce the throw-away mentality. The real solutions lie in measures \u00a0and policies that will reduce, if not eliminate, the use of problematic and throw-away plastic packaging for products. This is the real innovation challenge that companies urgently need to take on.