Coca-Cola
The first company on this list shouldn’t be a surprise. Coca-Cola is a particularly prolific polluter, producing 3.3 million tons of plastic packaging each year. In Break Free from Plastic’s audit, more than 19,800 pieces of Coke-branded plastic were logged in 39 countries. This is more plastic than the next four top polluting companies combined. The company has also said that it has no plans to stop using single-use plastic.
In an emailed statement, a representative from Coca-Cola ran down some of the company’s sustainability goals, including its progress on selling refillable bottles and using recycled plastic. “We don’t want to see any of our packaging end up where it shouldn’t which is why we aim to collect and recycle a bottle or can — regardless of where it comes from — for every one we sell by 2030 globally,” the email said. (Some of those clean-up efforts Coca-Cola has sponsored have issues of their own.)
