The Companies With the Largest Plastic Footprint

Break Free From Plastic, a non-profit organization fighting plastic pollution, published the results of its annual brand audit last week. With the help of thousands of volunteers BFFP conduct a global audit of plastic waste collected in cleanups each year, in order to raise awareness and hold consumer companies accountable for their contribution to the problem.

This year’s analysis, conducted in 49 countries across 6 continents, included almost 350,000 pieces of plastic waste and yielded a familiar result. With 13,834 branded items found in 51 countries, Coca-Cola had by far the largest plastic footprint in 2020, followed by fellow consumer goods giants Nestlé, Colgate-Palmolive and Unilever.

“The world’s top polluting corporations claim to be working hard to solve plastic pollution, but instead they are continuing to pump out harmful single-use plastic packaging. We need to stop plastic production, phase out single-use and implement robust, standardized reuse systems,” Emma Priestland, Global Corporate Campaigns Coordinator at Break Free From Plastic said in the organization’s statement on the matter.