Top Global Corporate Plastic Polluter
Coca-Cola has topped the list every single year, for 6 years in a row. They have been found polluting more countries with more plastic waste than any other company on Earth.
To: Coca-Cola Company and its bottlers
Coca-Cola is the world's single largest contributor of branded plastic pollution. Despite repeated public commitments to sustainability - and mounting public concern over plastic pollution's threat to both the environment and human health - the company's plastic packaging use has grown by more than 20% over the past 5 years.
Coca-Cola already has a solution to reducing its plastic pollution problem - reusable, refillable glass bottles. These systems have operated all over the world for decades, but the company has replaced them with single-use plastic bottles and cans in many countries.
Refillable bottles prevent plastic pollution because they can be returned to bottling facilities, washed, and reused up to 50 times. Every instance of reuse prevents a disposable bottle or can from being thrown away or littered, and possibly ending up in the environment. It has been estimated that even just a 10 percentage point increase in reusable beverage packaging globally by 2030 could eliminate over 1 trillion single-use plastic bottles and cups.
Refillable bottle systems already exist and work at scale. Nearly half of the Coca-Cola products sold in the Philippines are in refillable glass bottles, for example. This was Coca-Cola's original packaging, and the company has the knowledge and technology to expand existing reuse infrastructure and bring systems back where they no longer exist. What is needed is the corporate will to invest and prioritize. Despite making promises to tackle the impact of its plastic use, in December 2024 Coca-Cola abandoned its own global commitment to make 25% of its packaging reusable by 2030. Coca-Cola can, and should do better.
We, the undersigned, call on Coca-Cola and its bottlers to urgently prioritize refillable and reusable packaging systems that do not leave communities or environments burdened with plastic waste. We also ask Coca-Cola to take full responsibility for the plastic pollution it has already caused, and to work with local communities and governments to ensure a just transition.
STOP THE PLASTIC FLOW
STOP THE PLASTIC FLOW
Coca-Cola's projected annual plastic use by 2030 is 4.1 million metric tons. That’s enough plastic to circle the Earth more than 100 times.
600,000 metric tons of Coca-Cola’s plastic packaging is projected to enter the world's waterways and oceans every year by 2030. That’s enough plastic to fill the stomachs of 18 million blue whales.
Coca-Cola is the world's single largest corporate plastic polluter, responsible for 11% of the world's branded plastic pollution.
Coca-Cola has topped the list every single year, for 6 years in a row. They have been found polluting more countries with more plastic waste than any other company on Earth.
