8 ms·

Five Companies Produce Nearly 25 Percent of All Plastic Waste Worldwide

explain 2y ago
Need to adjust relative to their revenue
max_ 2y ago
Classic Power Law or Pareto distribution. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution
andrewstuart 2y ago
I visited a remote island in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific. A tiny island, I walked all around the island in the water in about two hours. There were hundreds, probably thousands of plastic drink bottles in the water and on the sand. Every step brought fresh plastic drink bottles into view. Humans don't deserve this planet.
- silisili 2y ago
  While I agree with the ending statement largely, we have to blame the producers here. If I want water, I'm stuck with what's sold to me. Most on this site are fortunate enough to be able to drink disposables and have it whisked away magically. It's when that doesn't or can't occur that you start to realize how much we all waste. Single use plastics should have been outlawed years ago. Or at least taxed to high heaven.
  - eru 2y ago
    I'm even more fortunate: I have fresh water that comes out of a tap. Very convenient. > Single use plastics should have been outlawed years ago. Or at least taxed to high heaven. Tax, don't ban. And make the tax proportional to the estimated damage.
    - silisili 2y ago
      Sure, maybe water was a poor example. Let's look at milk, assuming we don't all have cows at hand here. In most places, you can only buy it in plastic and sometimes paper carton, though that seems to be dwindling. There are no other options, so people just grab the plastic one. There's a local place by me that sells their milk in beautiful glass jugs. They charge $5 a jug, but you get that back if you return it unbroken to buy more. That place sells a ton, it's just that most people don't even have the option. It seems though companies have zero incentive to do such a program. There's no reward for recycling as above, and no punishment for being wasteful. However we change that - either via tax or law, I'd be on board with.
      - eru 2y ago
        That's an interesting example. Keep in mind that single use items like plastic or paper cartons also only have a finite cost in terms of resources and environmental impact. So you'd have to weigh that against the potentially more annoying logistics of having to go back to the store to return your glass jug; especially if you do that journey by car. (Recycling glass is about as resource intensive as making new glass. And both take a lot more than making a tetrapak.) I grew up in Germany, where re-using glass bottles is widespread, most iconically for beer. So on the consumer side there's unlikely to be extra journeys for that: most stores take bake used bottles. Aluminum and steel cans are widely recycled around the world as far as I can tell. So much so that you can actually get (small amounts of) money for collecting aluminum cans. No extra law or tax required there: if you don't recycle your can, in many places someone else will.
  - qeternity 2y ago
    > If I want water, I'm stuck with what's sold to me. This is a cop out. It’s cheap and trivial to buy a reusable water bottle and refill it.
- strogonoff 2y ago
  Visible plastic pollution is horrible, and is only part of the problem. This then breaks down and was shown to enter and accumulate in not only animal bodies, including human bodies (soft tissue, lungs, even placenta[0][1]), but individual cells[2]. This includes BPA, a xenoestrogen used in most or all plastic bottles, which in EU is among the candidates for SVHC (substances of very high concern)[3]. [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412020322297 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202... [1] https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/toxsci/kfae021/7609801?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/advance-article-abstract/doi... [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969720360472 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance_of_very_high_concern https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance_of_very_high_concern (I expect the oil industry to do its utmost to delay this from having any legal effect, as per.)
- throwthrow4567 2y ago
  good sentiment, but how did you reach that remote island? most likely, that 2 hour walk produced quiet a hefty amount of disproportionate pollution.
  - badcppdev 2y ago
    I was going to say the same. There is a chance that they sailed to the location. However a 6 hour flight from the closest major city would have given off 1500 kg of CO2 (per passenger). And presumably another 1500kg to get back again.
strogonoff 2y ago
Thinking that recycling would address the problem of plastic pollution is wishful thinking. Plastic recycles very poorly. Companies like plastic because it means thicker margins for them, environment be damned; the proper solution is not to buy into the “consumers should be recycling” narrative but to thin out their margins so that using more sustainable and recyclable materials is financially attractive again.
- rightbyte 2y ago
  Steel or aluminum cans might be better? At least they rust away and don't float. I mean you could have a screw cap on a can too if that is important. Dunno why 33cl/50cl and whatever the oz. sizes are, are metal and plastic respectivly. Using one time cannisters for water feels fundamentally unsubstainable.
  - strogonoff 2y ago
    I think “one time” is the key word here. Multiple use glass and metal containers were just fine before plastic; they can be the norm again.
- olejorgenb 2y ago
  > Plastic recycles very poorly. While I'm sure this is true in general, my impression is that the PET used in drink-bottles recycle well. For drink bottles I don't think we have a good option either? Glass is too heavy, aluminum is more energy intensive (I assume) even when it's recycled. Reusable bottles is unlikely to be realistic.
  - olejorgenb 2y ago
    Collection rates in countries having an reverse-vending system is also high to very-high. 80-95% IIRC
    - unwind 2y ago
      Deposits on cans and PET bottles is well-established in Sweden, and rates seem to be around 90% now according to the responsible company [1], so yes. [1]: https://pantamera.nu/en/private-citizen/facts--statistics/deposit-statistics/ https://pantamera.nu/en/private-citizen/facts--statistics/de...
maeln 2y ago
While I understand the point, that and the classic "X company produce Y% of carbon emission worldwide!" feel very dishonest. They don't produce the waste for the heck of it. It is directly linked to our consumption. We want less plastic waste ? Then vote for more regulation, and sadly, this doesn't seem like the priority for a lot of people right now (which is understandable since rich country just send their plastic waste to poor country, they don't see the consequences of their action).
- eru 2y ago
  You don't need 'more' regulation, but probably different regulation. So eg instead of having lots of piecemeal regulation that bans straws and plastic bags and Kinder Surprise eggs etc, you can have a single relatively simple tax on plastic garbage. The total amount of regulation would go down, but effectiveness would go up. (You can give companies who collect and deal with their plastic trash a discount on the tax, if you want to.) Similar for carbon dioxide emissions tax, instead of silly gameable things like CAFE car standards.
  - willguest 2y ago
    I agree with your abstraction of the problem, but I think you stopped half-way. Regulators, producers and consumers are all following the same interconnected incentive structures, many of which have been designed with efficient production and an exponential increase of consumption in mind, not environmental concern. It makes sense for these companies to operate, following their obligation to shareholders. They are, by definition, successful and so the idea that they should be diminished in any way by taxation/regulation creates a dissonance that can easily be loopholed or simply undone by the next gov't. Tax is a political lever, but the incentives are emergent economic atttributes. This means that, as soon as there is enough economic influence within politics, the lever doesn't do much anyway.
    - eru 2y ago
      And yet, the cap-and-trade for sulfur-dioxide worked really, really well. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program Our traffic congestion charging program here in Singapore also works really well (and was famously adopted by London later).
RobotToaster 2y ago
Eh, the headline is kind of misleading >they used data from brand information on plastic litter and found that 24 percent of the waste with an identifiable brand came from just five companies: Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, Danone, and Altria. >Over five years, volunteers in 84 countries analyzed over 1,800,000 pieces of plastic that they collected during clean-up events. Just over half the analyzed items had a visible brand. 1) It wasn't 24%, it was 24% of the half that could be identified. 2) It's only of the litter collected during clean-up events, so will be skewed towards waste from products used outside. This will ignore things like industrial plastic waste, fishing nets (which is a big issue in ocean plastics), etc. That said it still seems like an important study. There's also the question of what is actually problematic waste, that causes issues for humans or animals. Plastic in landfill isn't "good", but as long as it doesn't contaminate groundwater AFAIK it's harmless.
- bryanrasmussen 2y ago
  >It wasn't 24%, it was 24% of the half that could be identified. with a large enough data set the chance that the half that cannot be identified is also 24% looks pretty good, unless there is something specifically about these brands that makes the identifying of them easier than other brands - which is also a pretty good chance I would say. If there is a good likelihood of identifying these brands specifically then I guess it is actually pretty close to 12% (assuming there are still some small amount which cannot be identified)
- edarchis 2y ago
  The fact that Altria (ex Philip Morris), a tobacco brand, made it to this list is telling IMO. There is no way that the cigarette packaging produces that much identifiable plastic trash. My guess would be that in some countries, the stores provide disposable plastic bags with any purchase and that these bags include ads for tobacco brands. This study would associate the brand with the generation of trash while the trash should rather be associated with the store. I'll personally classify this study as unreliable.
OsrsNeedsf2P 2y ago
To everyone blaming consumers: I encourage you to take a solution driven mindset here. Consumers won't change. There's far too many people, some of which don't care about the environment. Tight regulations and additional tax on single use plastics can reduce plastic waste.
- blueflow 2y ago
  > pieces of plastic that they collected during clean-up events The article is about trash from littering. Surely the consumers fault.
  - CaptainFever 2y ago
    I agree with you, I think this is primarily an issue with selfish people littering the environment. I didn't like how the article framed it as a "companies are littering" thing, as if it's factory waste. Though... I also agree with the GP. It seems to be too hard to educate or enforce littering laws on consumers (edit: in some countries. Some other countries like Japan have better non-littering cultures). It might be easier to mandate things like biodecomposable plastic or... glass? That would be less harmful even if disposed of improperly. (How else are we going to get sweet drinks? Drink dispensers and enforced personal bottles?)
    - willvarfar 2y ago
      When I was young and playing in wasteland we often came across broken glass bottles etc. Very dangerous. They were also regularly blamed as the source of wild fires.
      - strogonoff 2y ago
        Some people may disagree that the chance of your child taking a cut from glass while playing in an area with sharp glass debris is a milder option than your child having microplastic with all its xenoestrogens and other disruptors accumulating in body since before being born[0], especially considering that 1) not all glass pieces are sharp and 2) plastic can be sharp enough to cut your skin as well (I personally have received cuts, deep enough to spill blood, from plastic—as an adult), but to me the choice would be clear. Too bad I don’t get to make that choice—the ship has sailed and all we can do is try to clean up the existing mess and stop generating more of it. [0] https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/article/199/1/81/7609801?login=false https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/article/199/1/81/7609801?log...
keybored 2y ago
The real problem is everyone using plastic bags to haul their purchases (which might be wrapped in five layers of plastic but who cares). That’s what the telly tells me.
spacebanana7 2y ago
Waste isn't inherently bad, littering is. It's not Coca Cola's fault that people throw away plastic bottles into the rainforest, oceans or other fragile ecosystems.
- rishav_sharan 2y ago
  No, but it definitely should be in Coca Cola's charter to explore and invest in biodegradable alternatives. And the only way to hold such immense companies to their environmental responsibilities is either regulation or consumer perception.
  - spacebanana7 2y ago
    Is this more of a realpolitik environmentalism? I can see how it’s easier to legally pressure Coca Cola than to enforce littering fines & proper landfill practices globally. But it’s still not morally Coca Cola’s fault that lazy consumers litter.
    - spacebanana7 2y ago
      @dang Not sure what’s going on here but the parent comment and my relies both seem to be getting duplicated.
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  Waste is inherently bad (in that it is a downstream cost.)
  - spacebanana7 2y ago
    Are faeces inherently bad? Many years of evolution selected that as the most efficient option for a digestive system.
    - austinjp 2y ago
      Faeces isn't plastic. Evolution isn't a decision.
a_c 2y ago
Reducing sugar consumption has long term health benefit, reduce medical cost, and might reduce consumption of plastic bottle. Anyone explored regulating/taxing sugar before?
- riffraff 2y ago
  Yes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_drink_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_drink_tax
- sydbarrett74 2y ago
  In the US, President Wilson proposed a soft-drink tax in 1914, but the already-powerful Coca-Cola Company lobbied to defeat the initiative. In this country, the beverage industry is incredibly influential and has bought off a lot of legislators.
- shadedtriangle 2y ago
  Yes, the city of Seattle instituted a sweetened beverage tax in 2017 and there was a study with results published in 2023. https://www.seattle.gov/sweetened-beverage-tax-community-advisory-board/evaluation-reports https://www.seattle.gov/sweetened-beverage-tax-community-adv...
- esperent 2y ago
  Mexico, the UK, and Portugal all have a tax on sugary drinks. Norway seems to be the only country with an overall sugar tax though.
XorNot 2y ago
I don't actually care at all about plastic waste anymore. Landfill it and we're good: it started off as oil in the ground, it can end up as oil in the ground. Plastic not going into stable landfill is the real issue : so actually consumer plastic is kind of bad like that, whereas industrial plastic basically fine (i.e. infrastructure plastics like pipes).
- throwaway03312 2y ago
  I'm not an engineer, so I may be wrong, but is it actually possible to build a stable landfill? Wouldn't the micro plastics risk leaking into the ground when it is broken down eventually? When it rains, the water has to go somewhere and unless you invest in expensive filtration systems, this does not seem economically viable. The micro plastics may even leak into the ground water and spread far beyond the land fill. Even if we do find an economic way to build a stable landfill that lasts a few decades, it will probably just postpone the pollution to a later generation when it is no longer maintained. But at least it is better than just dumping it in the nature as many do today.
  - blitzar 2y ago
    The Engineering of Landfills - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41436642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41436642
VMG 2y ago
Would it be better if 500 companies produced 25% of all plastic waste?
mkl 2y ago
Good, but an unavoidably biased method. They could identify about half the waste plastic items, and 11% of those were identified as coming from Coca Cola, which has some of the most distinctive bottle shapes, so is probably more easily identified.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  Also I don't think most of other types of disposable products other than medium duty bags are branded... So tracking them down those that have branding or large labels seem obvious.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  There's a marketing lesson in here somewhere... that should put an ever so slight pressure on Coca Cola Company to clean up their act. Maybe we could tax companies based on how much of their litter can be identified on randomly selected areas for sampling.
Hilift 2y ago
This article is pointless. The issue is what occurs with the waste after it is produced. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93Philippines_waste_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93Philippines_was...
jillesvangurp 2y ago
Plastic and glass bottle and can recycling is pretty common in most of Europe. You pay a deposit when you buy a can or bottle. And you get it back when you return it. If you leave your empty bottle on the street, some homeless person will return it for you. This is actually a pretty common form of charity in Berlin and it's not considered littering to leave your empty bottle for someone to collect it. It's not a perfect system but most bottles and cans are collected this way and recycled. That would cover most of the bottles produced by the five companies mentioned in the article. You also don't get a plastic bag for free anymore but you can buy one. In most places it's going to be a paper bag. Simple solutions that work pretty well. And once people adjust, it isn't the end of the world. The real issue is of course people dumping their trash all over the place instead of putting it in a trash can from where most of it would end up in a landfill, incinerator, or even being recycled. Some places have steep fines for littering, which works. IMHO not a bad thing. If you are too lazy to use a trashcan and get caught, there should be a penalty for being a jerk.
- Freak_NL 2y ago
  Glass and aluminium are recycled. This works quite well. Plastic (and clothing) on the other hand, is now mostly just collected and afterwards discarded (burned, shipped overseas to dumping grounds, etc.). Plastic recycling factories are going bankrupt (five in the tiny Netherlands in the space of one year), because they can't compete with new plastic. Textile processors are stuck with warehouses full of unusable discarded fast fashion. Littering is just a tiny part of this problem. Reducing plastic (by charging for bags) is good and works, but the bigger issue lies with the fact that we use so much plastic, and often have no real choice in the matter.
  - olejorgenb 2y ago
    > Plastic (and clothing) on the other hand, is now mostly just collected and afterwards discarded (burned, shipped overseas to dumping grounds, etc.). This is not true for drink bottles. (though they are not 100% recyclable due to material degradation, and there might be safety challenges for products made of recycled feedstock) I can't claim nothing is burned/etc, but it's most certainly not "mostly" for countries with a collection scheme.
rob74 2y ago
> Altria, a tobacco company, disagrees with the findings. In an email, a spokesperson said that the study data includes 80 countries, but its cigarette company Philip Morris USA, which owns brands such as Marlboro and Parliament, only operates in the United States, making it impossible for it to be responsible for 2 percent of the world’s branded plastic pollution. Not sure about the other companies, but Coca-Cola could also try to weasel out of their responsibility this way: it's not widely known, but they operate on a franchise system, the actual regional bottlers operating independently from the Coca-Cola Company (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coca-Cola_Company#Bottlers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coca-Cola_Company#Bottlers).
gaiagraphia 2y ago
If I made branded disposable products which ended up thrown around all over town, the police would become interested in me very quickly. Enrages me how huge corporations churning out consumer slop aren't held to any standards. Would love to see ringfenced taxes on domestic revenue for such companies, which go into cleaning up the streets of their shite, research into more sustainable materials, recycling and bottle collection schemes, etc. Quite incredible the amount of guilt and societal pressure the little man has in 'saving the planet', when companies with nation state resources seem to be devoid of any responsibility.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  I have mixed feelings tbh. On the one hand, sure, Coca Cola and co manufacture the plastic in the first place. On the other, consumers buy them and discard the packaging inappropriately OR the place they live in does not have adequate trash infrastructure in place. Plastic waste is not a problem if it's handled correctly is what I'm saying. In big chunks of europe you pay a deposit for even small plastic bottles nowadays, to be returned if you (or someone else) returns it to a collection point from where it's (theoretically) disposed of properly. If it ends up in general waste or the environment, that deposit is theoretically used for its cleanup.
- high_na_euv 2y ago
  >If I made branded disposable products which ended up thrown around all over town, the police would become interested in me very quickly And what would they do?
taeric 2y ago
I find the headline frustrating. It is a study that seems to have only looked at branded plastic. It also seems to think that the finding showing a correlation to production numbers is proof that the producers are not taking effective efforts. I can't and don't say the results are worthless. I do question any study that doesn't mention the fashion industry on plastics. My gut is I pollute more plastic from my drier vent than makes any sense. And yet most people I talk to are unaware that drier lint is plastic.
WalterBright 2y ago
Blaming companies for what their customers do seems like a miscarriage of justice.
WalterBright 2y ago
I've always thought the bottled water industry was insane. Why pay a dollar for a bottle of water, when you can get it out of the tap for a fraction of a cent? If you don't like the tap water taste, get a filter (they're cheap) and you're still way way ahead on cost. And if you buy water in plastic bottles, doesn't the plastic leach into the water? Why drink that? I grew up in Arizona, where you drink a couple of gallons of water a day. Nobody drank water from bottles. There were water fountains everywhere, every store had one. When hiking, you just bought a canteen and filled it from the tap.
- olejorgenb 2y ago
  Yes, as someone living in a country with clean and tasty water from the tap, it's quite shocking see the massive bottle consumption in countries where most (?) drinking water is distributed in disposable bottles/containers.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    Drinking water bottled in plastic also means the plastic leaches into the water.
metalman 2y ago
so I could imagine going, grabbing, one of the actual people responsible for the mess on the beach at my place, drag them there, and make them clean up there mess It sure feels personal from here, is what I am saying, and lo, it is I have 1400' of ocean front,where there is always plastic garbage washing up. And have seen spots where the plastic snarls would fill a train car. Bolt cutterrs,hand saws, buckets, and shovles, work them in shifts round the clock. Funny thing is that there is so much plastic,or every kind, that the ocean is doing its thing, and there are surprises, toys and other personal items, broken, but then worn smooth and fine, with a hermit crab living in it.And I stick the larger weierder stuff into crooks in the trees at the high tide line, and keep the still useable things, 5 gallon buckets, hats a real lot of nice hats,gas jugs(with gas), If I go for a day walk somewhere ,and my hands and pockets fill up with more organic treasures, it us now inevitable that I find some sturdy plastic receptical or kit bag,something,on the beach to put it all in. This was not the case 20 years ago. There are 5000 miles of coast in nova scotia, and at the high tide line, where the berm of debrits, sea weed, drift wood and sand is, you dont have to look close to see the bits and pieces of plastic ,mixed in,from little coulorfull grains up to big stuff, that would take several people to move.
WalterBright 2y ago
The way to deal with plastic waste is by incentives, not punishment. Charge a quarter extra to buy a bottle, get a quarter when you hand it to the recycler. But the company can't do that. The tax people can. It would be useful thing the government can do instead of regulation and punishment.
9o1d 2y ago
This is a problem when the product is sealed in plastic that does not allow air to pass through. This is very harmful to the environment, dangerous bacteria multiply in such packaging. It would be better to wrap the product in paper or cardboard, as in previous years. In any case, it is necessary to make holes in the plastic packaging for ventilation. Chinese companies are very fond of sealing products in plastic film, but forget to make holes for ventilation. Such a product is very harmful and can cause mass epidemics. It is very harmful when people drink a drink from a bottle, screw it on and throw it away. Such an empty bottle is very dangerous if it is opened. Do not do this. Bottles should strip the threads when opened so that they cannot be resealed.
Molitor5901 2y ago
Why would a tariff on plastic bottling and packaging not help to reduce this? I understand that prices will be passed on to consumers, but money from the tariff can be used to fund state municipal recycling programs. Similar to the national highway trust fund. I do not see congress ever agreeing to limit plastic due to the outsized influence of the industries and companies involved. Regulatory action has been almost non-existent, regardless of which administration was in power. No federal agency has the legal authority to limit the flow of plastic into America, and as stated, it is unlikely congress will ever give them that authority; not to mention a decade of litigation ahead. The only thing that can be done to have some impact is a high tariff on plastics, including packaging and as a percentage of the product. At the same time, there should be no tariff on replacements for plastics such as aluminum and glass bottling. Short of a strong tariff, I do not see the government ever having meaningful impact on plastic waste.
DoctorOetker 2y ago
What would be the environmentally AND commercially aware desiderata for food and beverage containers? Reusable: strong, durable but also easy to clean, both for hydrophillic and hydrophobic goods. Can synthetic corundum or diamond ever become a viable alternative? A standardized symbol could indicate that the box is intended for hydrophobic or hydrophillic goods. Is UV-C transparency a desiderata for easy sterilization after cleaning? Transparent: so people can see the food they are buying, transparent and reusable seems to imply scratch and minimal corrosion resistance as well. Storable & transportable: a 3D equivalent to the paper sizes used in Europe: 2 A5-sheets side by side are the same dimension as an A4 sheet, 2 A4-sheets side by side are the same dimensions as an A3 poster size paper. Can a similar scheme be made for 3D boxes instead of 2D sheets? For 2D Ax system: the long side has a constant ratio to the short side, so perhaps side lengths L x W x H such that L / W = W / H = cube root 2 ? There will always be a cost to cleaning containers, and while we can optimize the properties of the boxes for cleaning, there will always be some cost to cleaning, and a cleaning facility will feel financial pressure to clean less thoroughly but also a financial / legal / reputational pressure to clean more thoroughly. Having unique QR codes for individual boxes means any spoilt product brought back by consumers can be traced to its last cleaning, and the previous meal it contained, so a cleaning facility can then adjust the cleaning parameters for the type of previous meal, previous sale date, return date etc to understand if it would benefit from longer soaking, more percusive water jetting etc...

Need to adjust relative to their revenue

max_ 2y ago

Classic Power Law or Pareto distribution. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution

andrewstuart 2y ago

I visited a remote island in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific. A tiny island, I walked all around the island in the water in about two hours. There were hundreds, probably thousands of plastic drink bottles in the water and on the sand. Every step brought fresh plastic drink bottles into view. Humans don't deserve this planet.

silisili 2y ago
While I agree with the ending statement largely, we have to blame the producers here. If I want water, I'm stuck with what's sold to me. Most on this site are fortunate enough to be able to drink disposables and have it whisked away magically. It's when that doesn't or can't occur that you start to realize how much we all waste. Single use plastics should have been outlawed years ago. Or at least taxed to high heaven.
- eru 2y ago
  I'm even more fortunate: I have fresh water that comes out of a tap. Very convenient. > Single use plastics should have been outlawed years ago. Or at least taxed to high heaven. Tax, don't ban. And make the tax proportional to the estimated damage.
  - silisili 2y ago
    Sure, maybe water was a poor example. Let's look at milk, assuming we don't all have cows at hand here. In most places, you can only buy it in plastic and sometimes paper carton, though that seems to be dwindling. There are no other options, so people just grab the plastic one. There's a local place by me that sells their milk in beautiful glass jugs. They charge $5 a jug, but you get that back if you return it unbroken to buy more. That place sells a ton, it's just that most people don't even have the option. It seems though companies have zero incentive to do such a program. There's no reward for recycling as above, and no punishment for being wasteful. However we change that - either via tax or law, I'd be on board with.
    - eru 2y ago
      That's an interesting example. Keep in mind that single use items like plastic or paper cartons also only have a finite cost in terms of resources and environmental impact. So you'd have to weigh that against the potentially more annoying logistics of having to go back to the store to return your glass jug; especially if you do that journey by car. (Recycling glass is about as resource intensive as making new glass. And both take a lot more than making a tetrapak.) I grew up in Germany, where re-using glass bottles is widespread, most iconically for beer. So on the consumer side there's unlikely to be extra journeys for that: most stores take bake used bottles. Aluminum and steel cans are widely recycled around the world as far as I can tell. So much so that you can actually get (small amounts of) money for collecting aluminum cans. No extra law or tax required there: if you don't recycle your can, in many places someone else will.
- qeternity 2y ago
  > If I want water, I'm stuck with what's sold to me. This is a cop out. It’s cheap and trivial to buy a reusable water bottle and refill it.
strogonoff 2y ago
Visible plastic pollution is horrible, and is only part of the problem. This then breaks down and was shown to enter and accumulate in not only animal bodies, including human bodies (soft tissue, lungs, even placenta[0][1]), but individual cells[2]. This includes BPA, a xenoestrogen used in most or all plastic bottles, which in EU is among the candidates for SVHC (substances of very high concern)[3]. [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412020322297 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202... [1] https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/toxsci/kfae021/7609801?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/advance-article-abstract/doi... [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969720360472 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance_of_very_high_concern https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance_of_very_high_concern (I expect the oil industry to do its utmost to delay this from having any legal effect, as per.)
throwthrow4567 2y ago
good sentiment, but how did you reach that remote island? most likely, that 2 hour walk produced quiet a hefty amount of disproportionate pollution.
- badcppdev 2y ago
  I was going to say the same. There is a chance that they sailed to the location. However a 6 hour flight from the closest major city would have given off 1500 kg of CO2 (per passenger). And presumably another 1500kg to get back again.

strogonoff 2y ago

Thinking that recycling would address the problem of plastic pollution is wishful thinking. Plastic recycles very poorly. Companies like plastic because it means thicker margins for them, environment be damned; the proper solution is not to buy into the “consumers should be recycling” narrative but to thin out their margins so that using more sustainable and recyclable materials is financially attractive again.

rightbyte 2y ago
Steel or aluminum cans might be better? At least they rust away and don't float. I mean you could have a screw cap on a can too if that is important. Dunno why 33cl/50cl and whatever the oz. sizes are, are metal and plastic respectivly. Using one time cannisters for water feels fundamentally unsubstainable.
- strogonoff 2y ago
  I think “one time” is the key word here. Multiple use glass and metal containers were just fine before plastic; they can be the norm again.
olejorgenb 2y ago
> Plastic recycles very poorly. While I'm sure this is true in general, my impression is that the PET used in drink-bottles recycle well. For drink bottles I don't think we have a good option either? Glass is too heavy, aluminum is more energy intensive (I assume) even when it's recycled. Reusable bottles is unlikely to be realistic.
- olejorgenb 2y ago
  Collection rates in countries having an reverse-vending system is also high to very-high. 80-95% IIRC
  - unwind 2y ago
    Deposits on cans and PET bottles is well-established in Sweden, and rates seem to be around 90% now according to the responsible company [1], so yes. [1]: https://pantamera.nu/en/private-citizen/facts--statistics/deposit-statistics/ https://pantamera.nu/en/private-citizen/facts--statistics/de...

maeln 2y ago

While I understand the point, that and the classic "X company produce Y% of carbon emission worldwide!" feel very dishonest. They don't produce the waste for the heck of it. It is directly linked to our consumption. We want less plastic waste ? Then vote for more regulation, and sadly, this doesn't seem like the priority for a lot of people right now (which is understandable since rich country just send their plastic waste to poor country, they don't see the consequences of their action).

eru 2y ago
You don't need 'more' regulation, but probably different regulation. So eg instead of having lots of piecemeal regulation that bans straws and plastic bags and Kinder Surprise eggs etc, you can have a single relatively simple tax on plastic garbage. The total amount of regulation would go down, but effectiveness would go up. (You can give companies who collect and deal with their plastic trash a discount on the tax, if you want to.) Similar for carbon dioxide emissions tax, instead of silly gameable things like CAFE car standards.
- willguest 2y ago
  I agree with your abstraction of the problem, but I think you stopped half-way. Regulators, producers and consumers are all following the same interconnected incentive structures, many of which have been designed with efficient production and an exponential increase of consumption in mind, not environmental concern. It makes sense for these companies to operate, following their obligation to shareholders. They are, by definition, successful and so the idea that they should be diminished in any way by taxation/regulation creates a dissonance that can easily be loopholed or simply undone by the next gov't. Tax is a political lever, but the incentives are emergent economic atttributes. This means that, as soon as there is enough economic influence within politics, the lever doesn't do much anyway.
  - eru 2y ago
    And yet, the cap-and-trade for sulfur-dioxide worked really, really well. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program Our traffic congestion charging program here in Singapore also works really well (and was famously adopted by London later).

RobotToaster 2y ago

Eh, the headline is kind of misleading >they used data from brand information on plastic litter and found that 24 percent of the waste with an identifiable brand came from just five companies: Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, Danone, and Altria. >Over five years, volunteers in 84 countries analyzed over 1,800,000 pieces of plastic that they collected during clean-up events. Just over half the analyzed items had a visible brand. 1) It wasn't 24%, it was 24% of the half that could be identified. 2) It's only of the litter collected during clean-up events, so will be skewed towards waste from products used outside. This will ignore things like industrial plastic waste, fishing nets (which is a big issue in ocean plastics), etc. That said it still seems like an important study. There's also the question of what is actually problematic waste, that causes issues for humans or animals. Plastic in landfill isn't "good", but as long as it doesn't contaminate groundwater AFAIK it's harmless.

bryanrasmussen 2y ago
>It wasn't 24%, it was 24% of the half that could be identified. with a large enough data set the chance that the half that cannot be identified is also 24% looks pretty good, unless there is something specifically about these brands that makes the identifying of them easier than other brands - which is also a pretty good chance I would say. If there is a good likelihood of identifying these brands specifically then I guess it is actually pretty close to 12% (assuming there are still some small amount which cannot be identified)
edarchis 2y ago
The fact that Altria (ex Philip Morris), a tobacco brand, made it to this list is telling IMO. There is no way that the cigarette packaging produces that much identifiable plastic trash. My guess would be that in some countries, the stores provide disposable plastic bags with any purchase and that these bags include ads for tobacco brands. This study would associate the brand with the generation of trash while the trash should rather be associated with the store. I'll personally classify this study as unreliable.

OsrsNeedsf2P 2y ago

To everyone blaming consumers: I encourage you to take a solution driven mindset here. Consumers won't change. There's far too many people, some of which don't care about the environment. Tight regulations and additional tax on single use plastics can reduce plastic waste.

blueflow 2y ago
> pieces of plastic that they collected during clean-up events The article is about trash from littering. Surely the consumers fault.
- CaptainFever 2y ago
  I agree with you, I think this is primarily an issue with selfish people littering the environment. I didn't like how the article framed it as a "companies are littering" thing, as if it's factory waste. Though... I also agree with the GP. It seems to be too hard to educate or enforce littering laws on consumers (edit: in some countries. Some other countries like Japan have better non-littering cultures). It might be easier to mandate things like biodecomposable plastic or... glass? That would be less harmful even if disposed of improperly. (How else are we going to get sweet drinks? Drink dispensers and enforced personal bottles?)
  - willvarfar 2y ago
    When I was young and playing in wasteland we often came across broken glass bottles etc. Very dangerous. They were also regularly blamed as the source of wild fires.
    - strogonoff 2y ago
      Some people may disagree that the chance of your child taking a cut from glass while playing in an area with sharp glass debris is a milder option than your child having microplastic with all its xenoestrogens and other disruptors accumulating in body since before being born[0], especially considering that 1) not all glass pieces are sharp and 2) plastic can be sharp enough to cut your skin as well (I personally have received cuts, deep enough to spill blood, from plastic—as an adult), but to me the choice would be clear. Too bad I don’t get to make that choice—the ship has sailed and all we can do is try to clean up the existing mess and stop generating more of it. [0] https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/article/199/1/81/7609801?login=false https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/article/199/1/81/7609801?log...

keybored 2y ago

The real problem is everyone using plastic bags to haul their purchases (which might be wrapped in five layers of plastic but who cares). That’s what the telly tells me.

spacebanana7 2y ago

Waste isn't inherently bad, littering is. It's not Coca Cola's fault that people throw away plastic bottles into the rainforest, oceans or other fragile ecosystems.

rishav_sharan 2y ago
No, but it definitely should be in Coca Cola's charter to explore and invest in biodegradable alternatives. And the only way to hold such immense companies to their environmental responsibilities is either regulation or consumer perception.
- spacebanana7 2y ago
  Is this more of a realpolitik environmentalism? I can see how it’s easier to legally pressure Coca Cola than to enforce littering fines & proper landfill practices globally. But it’s still not morally Coca Cola’s fault that lazy consumers litter.
  - spacebanana7 2y ago
    @dang Not sure what’s going on here but the parent comment and my relies both seem to be getting duplicated.
dragonwriter 2y ago
Waste is inherently bad (in that it is a downstream cost.)
- spacebanana7 2y ago
  Are faeces inherently bad? Many years of evolution selected that as the most efficient option for a digestive system.
  - austinjp 2y ago
    Faeces isn't plastic. Evolution isn't a decision.

a_c 2y ago

Reducing sugar consumption has long term health benefit, reduce medical cost, and might reduce consumption of plastic bottle. Anyone explored regulating/taxing sugar before?

riffraff 2y ago
Yes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_drink_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_drink_tax
sydbarrett74 2y ago
In the US, President Wilson proposed a soft-drink tax in 1914, but the already-powerful Coca-Cola Company lobbied to defeat the initiative. In this country, the beverage industry is incredibly influential and has bought off a lot of legislators.
shadedtriangle 2y ago
Yes, the city of Seattle instituted a sweetened beverage tax in 2017 and there was a study with results published in 2023. https://www.seattle.gov/sweetened-beverage-tax-community-advisory-board/evaluation-reports https://www.seattle.gov/sweetened-beverage-tax-community-adv...
esperent 2y ago
Mexico, the UK, and Portugal all have a tax on sugary drinks. Norway seems to be the only country with an overall sugar tax though.

XorNot 2y ago

I don't actually care at all about plastic waste anymore. Landfill it and we're good: it started off as oil in the ground, it can end up as oil in the ground. Plastic not going into stable landfill is the real issue : so actually consumer plastic is kind of bad like that, whereas industrial plastic basically fine (i.e. infrastructure plastics like pipes).

throwaway03312 2y ago
I'm not an engineer, so I may be wrong, but is it actually possible to build a stable landfill? Wouldn't the micro plastics risk leaking into the ground when it is broken down eventually? When it rains, the water has to go somewhere and unless you invest in expensive filtration systems, this does not seem economically viable. The micro plastics may even leak into the ground water and spread far beyond the land fill. Even if we do find an economic way to build a stable landfill that lasts a few decades, it will probably just postpone the pollution to a later generation when it is no longer maintained. But at least it is better than just dumping it in the nature as many do today.
- blitzar 2y ago
  The Engineering of Landfills - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41436642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41436642

VMG 2y ago

Would it be better if 500 companies produced 25% of all plastic waste?

mkl 2y ago

Good, but an unavoidably biased method. They could identify about half the waste plastic items, and 11% of those were identified as coming from Coca Cola, which has some of the most distinctive bottle shapes, so is probably more easily identified.

Ekaros 2y ago
Also I don't think most of other types of disposable products other than medium duty bags are branded... So tracking them down those that have branding or large labels seem obvious.
actionfromafar 2y ago
There's a marketing lesson in here somewhere... that should put an ever so slight pressure on Coca Cola Company to clean up their act. Maybe we could tax companies based on how much of their litter can be identified on randomly selected areas for sampling.

Hilift 2y ago

This article is pointless. The issue is what occurs with the waste after it is produced. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93Philippines_waste_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93Philippines_was...

jillesvangurp 2y ago

Plastic and glass bottle and can recycling is pretty common in most of Europe. You pay a deposit when you buy a can or bottle. And you get it back when you return it. If you leave your empty bottle on the street, some homeless person will return it for you. This is actually a pretty common form of charity in Berlin and it's not considered littering to leave your empty bottle for someone to collect it. It's not a perfect system but most bottles and cans are collected this way and recycled. That would cover most of the bottles produced by the five companies mentioned in the article. You also don't get a plastic bag for free anymore but you can buy one. In most places it's going to be a paper bag. Simple solutions that work pretty well. And once people adjust, it isn't the end of the world. The real issue is of course people dumping their trash all over the place instead of putting it in a trash can from where most of it would end up in a landfill, incinerator, or even being recycled. Some places have steep fines for littering, which works. IMHO not a bad thing. If you are too lazy to use a trashcan and get caught, there should be a penalty for being a jerk.

Freak_NL 2y ago
Glass and aluminium are recycled. This works quite well. Plastic (and clothing) on the other hand, is now mostly just collected and afterwards discarded (burned, shipped overseas to dumping grounds, etc.). Plastic recycling factories are going bankrupt (five in the tiny Netherlands in the space of one year), because they can't compete with new plastic. Textile processors are stuck with warehouses full of unusable discarded fast fashion. Littering is just a tiny part of this problem. Reducing plastic (by charging for bags) is good and works, but the bigger issue lies with the fact that we use so much plastic, and often have no real choice in the matter.
- olejorgenb 2y ago
  > Plastic (and clothing) on the other hand, is now mostly just collected and afterwards discarded (burned, shipped overseas to dumping grounds, etc.). This is not true for drink bottles. (though they are not 100% recyclable due to material degradation, and there might be safety challenges for products made of recycled feedstock) I can't claim nothing is burned/etc, but it's most certainly not "mostly" for countries with a collection scheme.

rob74 2y ago

> Altria, a tobacco company, disagrees with the findings. In an email, a spokesperson said that the study data includes 80 countries, but its cigarette company Philip Morris USA, which owns brands such as Marlboro and Parliament, only operates in the United States, making it impossible for it to be responsible for 2 percent of the world’s branded plastic pollution. Not sure about the other companies, but Coca-Cola could also try to weasel out of their responsibility this way: it's not widely known, but they operate on a franchise system, the actual regional bottlers operating independently from the Coca-Cola Company (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coca-Cola_Company#Bottlers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coca-Cola_Company#Bottlers).

gaiagraphia 2y ago

If I made branded disposable products which ended up thrown around all over town, the police would become interested in me very quickly. Enrages me how huge corporations churning out consumer slop aren't held to any standards. Would love to see ringfenced taxes on domestic revenue for such companies, which go into cleaning up the streets of their shite, research into more sustainable materials, recycling and bottle collection schemes, etc. Quite incredible the amount of guilt and societal pressure the little man has in 'saving the planet', when companies with nation state resources seem to be devoid of any responsibility.

Cthulhu_ 2y ago
I have mixed feelings tbh. On the one hand, sure, Coca Cola and co manufacture the plastic in the first place. On the other, consumers buy them and discard the packaging inappropriately OR the place they live in does not have adequate trash infrastructure in place. Plastic waste is not a problem if it's handled correctly is what I'm saying. In big chunks of europe you pay a deposit for even small plastic bottles nowadays, to be returned if you (or someone else) returns it to a collection point from where it's (theoretically) disposed of properly. If it ends up in general waste or the environment, that deposit is theoretically used for its cleanup.
high_na_euv 2y ago
>If I made branded disposable products which ended up thrown around all over town, the police would become interested in me very quickly And what would they do?

taeric 2y ago

I find the headline frustrating. It is a study that seems to have only looked at branded plastic. It also seems to think that the finding showing a correlation to production numbers is proof that the producers are not taking effective efforts. I can't and don't say the results are worthless. I do question any study that doesn't mention the fashion industry on plastics. My gut is I pollute more plastic from my drier vent than makes any sense. And yet most people I talk to are unaware that drier lint is plastic.

WalterBright 2y ago

Blaming companies for what their customers do seems like a miscarriage of justice.

WalterBright 2y ago

I've always thought the bottled water industry was insane. Why pay a dollar for a bottle of water, when you can get it out of the tap for a fraction of a cent? If you don't like the tap water taste, get a filter (they're cheap) and you're still way way ahead on cost. And if you buy water in plastic bottles, doesn't the plastic leach into the water? Why drink that? I grew up in Arizona, where you drink a couple of gallons of water a day. Nobody drank water from bottles. There were water fountains everywhere, every store had one. When hiking, you just bought a canteen and filled it from the tap.

olejorgenb 2y ago
Yes, as someone living in a country with clean and tasty water from the tap, it's quite shocking see the massive bottle consumption in countries where most (?) drinking water is distributed in disposable bottles/containers.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  Drinking water bottled in plastic also means the plastic leaches into the water.

metalman 2y ago

so I could imagine going, grabbing, one of the actual people responsible for the mess on the beach at my place, drag them there, and make them clean up there mess It sure feels personal from here, is what I am saying, and lo, it is I have 1400' of ocean front,where there is always plastic garbage washing up. And have seen spots where the plastic snarls would fill a train car. Bolt cutterrs,hand saws, buckets, and shovles, work them in shifts round the clock. Funny thing is that there is so much plastic,or every kind, that the ocean is doing its thing, and there are surprises, toys and other personal items, broken, but then worn smooth and fine, with a hermit crab living in it.And I stick the larger weierder stuff into crooks in the trees at the high tide line, and keep the still useable things, 5 gallon buckets, hats a real lot of nice hats,gas jugs(with gas), If I go for a day walk somewhere ,and my hands and pockets fill up with more organic treasures, it us now inevitable that I find some sturdy plastic receptical or kit bag,something,on the beach to put it all in. This was not the case 20 years ago. There are 5000 miles of coast in nova scotia, and at the high tide line, where the berm of debrits, sea weed, drift wood and sand is, you dont have to look close to see the bits and pieces of plastic ,mixed in,from little coulorfull grains up to big stuff, that would take several people to move.

WalterBright 2y ago

The way to deal with plastic waste is by incentives, not punishment. Charge a quarter extra to buy a bottle, get a quarter when you hand it to the recycler. But the company can't do that. The tax people can. It would be useful thing the government can do instead of regulation and punishment.

9o1d 2y ago

This is a problem when the product is sealed in plastic that does not allow air to pass through. This is very harmful to the environment, dangerous bacteria multiply in such packaging. It would be better to wrap the product in paper or cardboard, as in previous years. In any case, it is necessary to make holes in the plastic packaging for ventilation. Chinese companies are very fond of sealing products in plastic film, but forget to make holes for ventilation. Such a product is very harmful and can cause mass epidemics. It is very harmful when people drink a drink from a bottle, screw it on and throw it away. Such an empty bottle is very dangerous if it is opened. Do not do this. Bottles should strip the threads when opened so that they cannot be resealed.

Molitor5901 2y ago

Why would a tariff on plastic bottling and packaging not help to reduce this? I understand that prices will be passed on to consumers, but money from the tariff can be used to fund state municipal recycling programs. Similar to the national highway trust fund. I do not see congress ever agreeing to limit plastic due to the outsized influence of the industries and companies involved. Regulatory action has been almost non-existent, regardless of which administration was in power. No federal agency has the legal authority to limit the flow of plastic into America, and as stated, it is unlikely congress will ever give them that authority; not to mention a decade of litigation ahead. The only thing that can be done to have some impact is a high tariff on plastics, including packaging and as a percentage of the product. At the same time, there should be no tariff on replacements for plastics such as aluminum and glass bottling. Short of a strong tariff, I do not see the government ever having meaningful impact on plastic waste.

DoctorOetker 2y ago

What would be the environmentally AND commercially aware desiderata for food and beverage containers? Reusable: strong, durable but also easy to clean, both for hydrophillic and hydrophobic goods. Can synthetic corundum or diamond ever become a viable alternative? A standardized symbol could indicate that the box is intended for hydrophobic or hydrophillic goods. Is UV-C transparency a desiderata for easy sterilization after cleaning? Transparent: so people can see the food they are buying, transparent and reusable seems to imply scratch and minimal corrosion resistance as well. Storable & transportable: a 3D equivalent to the paper sizes used in Europe: 2 A5-sheets side by side are the same dimension as an A4 sheet, 2 A4-sheets side by side are the same dimensions as an A3 poster size paper. Can a similar scheme be made for 3D boxes instead of 2D sheets? For 2D Ax system: the long side has a constant ratio to the short side, so perhaps side lengths L x W x H such that L / W = W / H = cube root 2 ? There will always be a cost to cleaning containers, and while we can optimize the properties of the boxes for cleaning, there will always be some cost to cleaning, and a cleaning facility will feel financial pressure to clean less thoroughly but also a financial / legal / reputational pressure to clean more thoroughly. Having unique QR codes for individual boxes means any spoilt product brought back by consumers can be traced to its last cleaning, and the previous meal it contained, so a cleaning facility can then adjust the cleaning parameters for the type of previous meal, previous sale date, return date etc to understand if it would benefit from longer soaking, more percusive water jetting etc...