Most of the beach litter is Coca-Cola and Pepsi packaging
- Cherry Sung
- Sep 10, 2019
- 1 min read
Ten food and beverage company packaging accounts for more than half of all waste
The most common packaging waste found on beaches and river banks in England was found to be Coca-Cola and Pepsi products.
The charity, Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), collected charity at 229 beaches and river banks last month, according to The Times. 45,000 volunteers took part in collecting 49000 pieces of packaging waste. Among them, Coca-Cola's packaging was the highest at 15.5%. Next came PepsiCo, which produces Coca-Cola rival Pepsi Cola, at 10.3%. Confectionery makers Mondeliz (6.8%), McDonald's (6%) and Swiss leading food company Nestle (5.5%) were the biggest confectioners. More than half of the waste has come from products produced by 10 food and beverage companies.
"The findings show that large companies are responsible for the contamination of plastics and packaging," said SAS. "Though ten companies accounted for more than half of all packaging contamination. They must change the way they do business."
SAS specifically stressed that companies should invest more in packaging that can be recycled while using less packaging. SAS decided to forward the analysis to the UK Environment Department.
The Ministry of Environment is currently in the process of collecting opinions on how companies will pay the full cost of disposal of packaging materials. Currently, manufacturers and distributors pay less than 10% of the packaging waste disposal costs and £ 100 million annually. The remaining 90% is borne by consumers through residence tax or other taxes. The Ministry of Environment is considering a plan to increase the company's burden from 50 million to 100 million pounds per year.
