Coca cola by far is the largest plastic polluter of the planet. In 2019, coca cola admitted the company produces 200,000 single use bottles per minute equivalent to 3m tonnes per year and in an interesting interview with BBC, coca cola defended its mass plastic production policies and shifted the blame on consumers instead of finding replacements for its single use plastic bottles. 

“Customers like them because they reseal and are lightweight” said Bea Perez, Coca-cola’s head of sustainability

She also added “Business won’t be in business if we don’t accommodate consumers”.

Massive amount of plastic production typically raised some voices of environmental activists against coca cola, so in 2018 coca cola lunched its “world without waste” campaign and promised to recycle a used bottle or can for every one the company sells by 2030 but it got criticized immediately by Green peace for not addressing the rapidly increase use of single-use plastics.

Pepsi – world’s second plastic polluter – also announced that it will half the use of virgin plastics across all brands and promised to use 50% of recycled plastic by 2030. 

Green peace also responded to this plan and urged Pepsi to reuse or refill bottles and find solutions to replace single-use plastics.

99% of plastic is made from fossil fuels 

Rapid growth of plastic use means more demand for Petrochemicals (the type of fossil fuels made into plastic which account for 14% of oil use), so plastic pollution is also responsible for air pollution and has direct effects on climate change and global warming.

Decreasing demand for plastic can play a huge role in the fight against climate change and most of our environmental issues but unfortunately    

According to an assessment released on by UNEP (UN Environmental program

We are going to have plastic pollution in oceans, land and even our bodies 2 times more than before by 2030.

Sources :
the guardian
Bbc
reuters
Earth911
Photo : Karolina Grabowska