For the first time ever, Coca-Cola has revealed how much plastic it uses each year – a shocking 3 million tonnes of plastic packing.
To put that into perspective, this would roughly be the same weight as 600,000 male Asian elephants or 15,000 blue whales. The amount of plastic waste on our planet has been highlighted many times recently but to see figures from some of these global brands really starts to hit home the true need to reduce, recycle and reuse our plastic before the effects to our planet become irreversible.
3 million tonnes is an outstanding amount of plastic produced by just one company, but you have to give Coca-Cola credit for being one of the 31 companies to disclose this information along with Nestle (1.7 million tonnes), Unilever (610,000 tonnes) & Colgate (287,000 tonnes). This information has been included in the spring report by the Ellen Macarthur Foundation. The Ellen Macarthur Foundation was launched in 2010 to accelerate the transition to a circular economy. Governments, cities & companies have all signed up & pledged to reduce the amount of plastic waste, including the UK Government.
Companies being more open about how much plastic they use & how much waste they create is a great step forward to get to the root of the problem.