Coca-Cola and PepsiCo “serial offenders” of plastic beach pollution in Surfers Against Sewage cleanup audit
12 Aug 2021 --- A UK pollution audit has named Coca-Cola and PepsiCo among the country’s top packaging polluters, following a nationwide beach cleanup dubbed “Million Mile Clean” by environmental group Surfers Against Sewage (SAS).
The report named a “Dirty Dozen” of brand labels found during the cleanup, which took place around the UK’s coastlines: Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Anheuser-Busch InBev, McDonald’s, Mondelēz International, Heineken, Tesco, Carlsberg Group, Suntory, Haribo, Mars and Aldi.
“Our annual Brand Audit has once again revealed the shocking volume of plastic and packaging pollution coming directly from big companies and some of their best-known brands,” says SAS CEO Hugo Tagholm.
“Serial offenders including Coca-Cola – which tops the leaderboard year on year as the worst offender – are still not taking responsibility. Legislation such as an ‘all-in’ deposit scheme needs to be introduced urgently, and governments need to hold these companies to account and turn off the tap of plastic and packaging pollution flooding the ocean.”
As the UK’s “biggest coordinated beach clean event,” over 50,000 volunteers took part in 600 cleans, covering 350,000 miles over one week.
Of these volunteers, 3,917 walked and cleaned 11,139 miles of beaches, rivers, mountains and more, submitting 377 brand audit data sets. A total of 26,983 items of packaging pollution were monitored as part of the brand audit.
The report is being used as a call to action on improving UK DRS.Coca-Cola responds
A Coca-Cola spokesperson tells PackagingInsights: “Like everyone, we care about reducing packaging waste and we don’t want to see any of our packaging end up where it shouldn’t. All of our packaging is 100 percent recyclable and our aim is to get more of it back so that it can be recycled and turned into new packaging again.”
“It’s disappointing to see any packaging being littered and that’s why we support the introduction of a well-designed DRS which would encourage people to recycle rather than litter or throw away.”
“In Great Britain, we’re continuing to work with numerous organizations to encourage more recycling on-the-go and we’re actively supporting a number of initiatives with the aim of making litter something of the past.”
PackagingInsights also reached out to PepsiCo for comment.
The dirty dozen
The top 12 most polluting brands were found to be responsible for 48 percent of all packaging pollution monitored during the audit.
There was also little change in the most polluting brands of 2021 compared to 2019 results, with Coca-Cola, Walkers, McDonald’s, Cadbury, Tesco, Lucozade, Costa Coffee, Mars Wrigley and Haribo all making repeat appearances.
A total of 26,983 items of packaging pollution were found during the audit.SAS is calling on policymakers to improve the situation, saying 52 percent of items would be captured through an ‘all-in’ Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) design. Over 80 percent of Coca-Cola’s packaging in the UK is estimated to be captured through this scheme, says the report.
Another 63 percent of all items monitored as part of the brand audit were unbranded. Cigarette butts were by far the biggest contributor, making up 25 percent of the unbranded items.
“Despite the corporate promises and commitments made, the plastic production and pollution tap is still not being turned off. We need companies, and their brands, to stop peddling false solutions and instead focus on ways to meaningfully reduce packaging production and pollution and adopt models of reuse and refill,” reads the audit report.
“We need to see governments introduce policies that are proven to prevent pollution reaching the ocean. We need a DRS that captures all sizes of containers of as wide a range of materials as possible, not one limited to only ‘on-the-go containers.”
The UK DRS issue
The UK’s Department of Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) recently concluded an industry consultation on introducing a DRS and updated Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme.
However, experts have warned Defra needs to provide better definitions and guidance on materials and their environmental impact.
Usual suspects
SAS’ audit joins the results of other research NGOs, which have found the same companies guilty of causing the most pollution.
Last year, Break Free From Plastics’ (BFFP) Brand Audit 2020 Report named industry giants Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestlé as the three most plastic polluting FMCG companies.
Despite promises for change following BFFP’s previous audits, several companies were found to have increased waste.
This year, BFFP also accused the same companies of investing in and prioritizing false solutions to the plastic waste crisis that will allow “business as usual” once single-use plastics bans take effect.
By Louis Gore-Langton
