501
submitted 6 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

Study confirms Altria, Philip Morris International, Danone, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola are worst offenders

Fewer than 60 multinationals are responsible for more than half of the world’s plastic pollution, with six responsible for a quarter of that, based on the findings of a piece of research published on Wednesday.

The researchers concluded that for every percentage increase in plastic produced, there was an equivalent increase in plastic pollution in the environment.

“Production really is pollution,” says one of the study’s authors, Lisa Erdle, director of science at the non-profit The 5 Gyres Institute.

An international team of volunteers collected and surveyed more than 1,870,000 items of plastic waste across 84 countries over five years: the bulk of the rubbish collected was single-use packaging for food, beverage, and tobacco products.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] jeffw@lemmy.world 55 points 6 months ago

The top five brands globally were The Coca-Cola Company (11%), PepsiCo (5%), Nestlé (3%), Danone (3%), and Altria (2%), accounting for 24% of the total branded count

I would’ve expected a slightly different order, but those companies also control about 24% of the food we buy, so… not surprising.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 11 points 6 months ago

Really? That's exactly the order I would have expected.

[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 15 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I would have thought Nestle to be higher. They are massive pieces of shit that poison children, after all. I figured they'd be putting plastic in the ocean on purpose like a Captain Planet antagonist.

[-] jeffw@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

PepsiCo is bigger than Coke, for one

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 12 points 6 months ago

PepsiCo owns Lays, which makes dry food. Coca-Cola mostly stays with beverages these days.

[-] jeffw@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

Sure, but some of that food is in plastic containers. Pepsi owns a shit ton of brands. By revenue, they are twice as big as Coke

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

I'd say the facts speak for themselves.

[-] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 1 points 6 months ago
[-] sukhmel@programming.dev 3 points 6 months ago

Then it makes them four times more ecological in a way, if that's even applicable to a company producing that much pollution

[-] Zehzin@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

I expected McDonald's to be up there.

[-] Hugh_Jeggs@lemm.ee 5 points 6 months ago

Maccies has had paper cups, fry holders and wrappers for at least two decades, and now everything used within the, er, "restaurant" is reusable

Is it different where you are?

[-] Zehzin@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Definitely plastic cups but paper straws for some reason

[-] sukhmel@programming.dev 1 points 6 months ago

They still use plastic straws in some places, and paper cups contain plastic, but yeah they don't seem to produce so much of (plastic) waste

[-] PriorityMotif@lemmy.world -5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

They mostly don't make their own plastic containers. You have to make a shitton of plastic bottles and caps to make money and there are companies that only make empty plastic bottles and companies that only make plastic caps. Look at the bottom of your plastic bottles and caps for Logos of the companies that produced them.

[-] jeffw@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

Did you read the article? It’s not about who made the plastic containers at all, it’s about which company made the product that they contain.

[-] PriorityMotif@lemmy.world 0 points 6 months ago

When they hire a private company to make their packaging, then there are no public records on how much plastic they actually buy. (It's in the millions of tons per year range) It also doesn't account for the amount of energy used to produce packaging (it's a a fuckton)

[-] PriorityMotif@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

I didn't know why I'm being downvoted, I worked at a plastic bottle factory making millions of bottles per day for many different big companies, including some listed there. They make the bottles and ship them empty to the companies to be filled.

this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2024
501 points (99.0% liked)

News

23284 readers
1652 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS