Global producer responsibility for plastic pollution
Brand names can be used to hold plastic companies accountable for their items found polluting the environment. We used data from a 5-year (2018–2022) worldwide (84 countries) program to identify brands found on plastic items in the environment through 1576 audit events. We found that 50% of items were unbranded, calling for mandated producer reporting. 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, and 56 companies accounted for more than 50%. There was a clear and strong log-log linear relationship production (%) = pollution (%) between companies’ annual production of plastic and their branded plastic pollution, with food and beverage companies being disproportionately large polluters. Phasing out single-use and short-lived plastic products by the largest polluters would greatly reduce global plastic pollution.
▻https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj8275
#responsabilité #plastique #multinationales
via @freakonometrics