Oceana analyzed data1 from the Global Commitment 2023 Progress Report released earlier this week by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and found that the two top polluting brands, according to the Break Free From Plastic Brand Audit, increased the amount of plastic used by hundreds of millions of pounds on a year over year basis. The Coca-Cola Company increased its use of plastic packaging by over 6% or over 454 million pounds (206,000 metric tons) to a reported 3.43 million metric tons in 2022. PepsiCo increased its use of plastic packaging by 4% or over 220 million pounds (100,000 metric tons) to a reported 2.6 million metric tons in 2022.
This increase coincides with additional data in the Ellen MacArthur annual report that shows the companies made only marginal progress towards meeting pledges to increase recycled content in their plastic packaging and to decrease their use of virgin plastic packaging. And, both companies reported no progress on having more plastic – by weight – in reusable packaging. Coca-Cola disclosed that this percent was just 1.3% in both 2021 and 2022 and Pepsi, for the second year running, released no data for this metric. The companies have pledged to increase the volume of beverages they sell in reusable packaging by roughly 10-percentage points by 2030.
Oceana released the following statement from Matt Littlejohn, Senior Vice President, Strategic Initiatives:
“It is unacceptable that Coca-Cola and Pepsi are increasing their use of plastic by hundreds of millions more pounds year over year. The companies’ efforts and pledges are not solving this problem. The best way for Coca-Cola and Pepsi to stop this relentless growth in plastic is to dramatically increase the use of refillable bottles – which can be used up to 50 times if made of glass. Just a 10% increase in refillable bottles in all coastal countries in place of single-use plastic could reduce marine plastic bottle pollution by 22%.
