Coca-Cola, one of the world’s most polluting brands when it comes to plastic waste, has been criticised for its reported discontinuation of reusable packaging goals.
The company seems to have abandoned previous commitments of encouraging refillable packaging and cutting virgin plastic use by citing business growth as a challenge.
All this comes just as negotiations on an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution concluded in Busan, South Korea.
Early this year, researchers at Science.org had found that fewer than 60 multinationals are responsible for more than half of the world’s plastic pollution, with six responsible for a quarter of that.
Coca-Cola was one of them. In 2022, it promised to have 25 per cent of its drinks sold in refillable or returnable glass or plastic bottles, or in refillable containers which could be filled up at fountains or freestyle dispensers.
Instead, Coca-Cola has now announced that it would aim to use 35-40 per cent recycled plastic in primary packaging (plastic, glass and aluminium) and ensure collection of 70-75 per cent of bottles and cans by 2035. It plans to increase its investment in innovation and infrastructure solutions, and collaborate with bottling partners, industry peers, local governments and civil society to achieve its goals.
There is criticism that this pivot undermines global efforts to reduce plastic waste, with Coca-Cola responsible for 11 per cent of branded plastic pollution worldwide. For every percentage increase in plastic produced, there is an equivalent increase in plastic pollution in the environment.
More than 1,870,000 items of plastic waste across 84 countries over five years were collected and surveyed by an international team of volunteers; the bulk of the collection was single-use packaging for food, beverage, and tobacco products. Less than half of the plastic litter had identifiable branding that could be traced back to the company responsible for its packaging.
Campaigners have invoked companies such as Coca-Cola to move from recycled plastic targets to reusable bottle targets, since single-use items are the main problem, and recycled single-use items continue to contribute to environmental pollution most of the time.
This coincides with nearly 200 nations failing to reach an agreement to reduce the production of plastics at the fifth meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) in Busan. For many, this failure represents a profound setback, exposing the deep divisions among nations and the compromises made in pursuit of consensus.
The other brands responsible for plastic pollution globally apart from Coca-Cola were PepsiCo (5 per cent), Nestlé (3 per cent), Danone (3 per cent), and Altria (2 per cent), accounting for 24 per cent of the total branded count.