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.
Think the unthinkable- what if we not only still sold most of our beverages in recyclable glass bottles, what if we also offered money to recycle them?
Don’t forget aluminum!
Aluminum is theoretically recyclable an unlimited number of times, so the cans are much less of an issue.
My point is aluminum and glass are much better than plastic.
I think one or the draw backs with aluminium cans though is they still have that plastic lining inside?
Coke cans and most pop for example still have plastic inside. Canada even recently made a paper wine bottle, but believe it or not, plastic bag inside a paper bottle.
When i was young we had glass bottles for everything.
Thank god for PET bottles.
PET is just as easily recyclable as glass and it doesnt break when the bottle falls or explode during temperature swings. Next to that its weighs not even 10% of a glass bottle thus saving a lot of transportation costs. Creating a PET bottle costs a fraction of a glass bottle. Nobody ever died because of a cut vein by a PET bottle. Glass on the other hand…
PET is way better for the environment then glass ever will be.
I lived in the 70s/80s as a kid and there are very good reasons why we stopped with glass. Glass bottles for pop sucked ass, big times.
And the recycle money scheme also works on PET bottles. I know that also for a fact. Why? I live in the EU. We’re doing that for like… Forever.
In the end its not the companies who just jug it onto the roadside or dont recycle shit. It’s us. We’re the assholes. We find it too hard to put something in the right bin. We find it too hard having 4 bins at home for recycling. We find it too hard to just keep our waste with us in the car. Its nasty. Just open the window and throw it out.
Putting everything in glass will solve nothing. Then, instead of forever plastic we’re left with forever glass. People are lazy assholes. Accept it and start work on that, not the symptoms.
And maybe… Maybe Carlin was right about plastic. (if you dont know what im talking about, which I cannot believe, search “carlin earth plastic” on YouTube. And choose the longest one for the entire sketch)
I get your point about PET bottles needing less energy to make and transport, but that is only looking at the energy use and co2 pollution.
You absolutely right there, but the article focuses on microplastics, another huge issue.
Is the microplastics issue worse than the co2 issue?
I am tempted to say “depends”, we don’t fully know the health impact of being exposed to microplastics constantly. We don’t know the long term effects of a planet being covered in microplastics, but it doesn’t look brilliant.
So you can’t say thay PET is outright better for the environment than glass.
PET is better in some ways, glass it better in others, which will win, no idea…
The real issue is: single servings are wasteful. If you make more food at home you’ll save money, eat healthier, and use less plastic and energy.
I think you have to hike through largely untouched forests to a very remote lake to find sharp glass shards scattered across the little beach to realize that glass maybe isn’t the most environmentally-sound magic-solution that some people would like to think. It can be just as (and much worse) strong at causing ecological catastrophies that are incredibly expensive to clean up.
The symptoms are: littered streets, nature.
The causes: fuckfaced fuckwads for people. In all areas of society.
This will hopefully be the dumbest thing I read today. But I assume this is a troll or a PR person.
This is not true.
Great substantiation. Thanks for that clear insight.
My insight is that it’s my area of expertise, it is clearly not yours.
Hahaha, great one.