Global producer responsibility for plastic pollution
Metadata
Authors
Cowger, W., Willis, K. A., Bullock, S., Conlon, K., Emmanuel, J., Erdle, L. M., Eriksen, M., Farrelly, T.A., Hardesty, B.D., Kerge, K., Li, N., Li, Y., Liebman, A., Tangri, N., Thiel, M., Villarrubia-Gómez, P., Walker, T.R., Wang, M.
Document title
Global producer responsibility for plastic pollution
Publication title
Science Advances
Year of publication
2024
Abstract
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.
