Products from Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Heineken account for nearly a quarter of the branded waste found by volunteers in the UK’s environmental clean-up project.
According to the third annual Planet Patrol report, more than half of all identifiable waste can be traced back to 10 brands – Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Cadbury, Red Bull, Walkers, Lucozade, Stella Artois, Tesco, Budweiser and Strongbow.
The beverage industry was the biggest polluter for the second year in a row, accounting for more than a third of the waste found in 2020 and 2021, including cans, plastic and glass bottles, single-use cups and lids.
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Packaging from Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Heineken accounts for almost a quarter of all brand waste found in the annual tally. Over 5,400 Planet Patrol app users recorded a total of 85,326 pieces of trash in 2021
For the third year in a row, Coca-Cola produced the most branded waste, accounting for more than a tenth of all recorded waste.
Planet Patrol has urged the government to support the UK’s “all-in” deposit return scheme “without delay”.
Such a scheme would see consumers pay a small deposit on the purchase of beverage bottles and cans, which would be refunded when the empty containers were brought to the collection point.
In a positive finding, the survey showed that plastics have fallen from just over two-thirds of the waste recorded by Planet Patrol in 2019 to half in 2021, suggesting consumer behaviour is shifting towards avoiding single-use plastics.
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However, metal waste almost doubled from 8% in 2019 to 15.5% in 2021, while the amount of paper and cardboard waste increased 21-fold, from 0.33% in 2019 to 7% in 2021.
Planet Patrol founder Lizzie Carr said: “Last year, only 10 parent companies were responsible for more than 50% of branded waste in the UK, and we see the same offenders repeatedly in our data, such as Coca-Cola.
“We are part of a fundamentally flawed system that continues to allow brands to pollute with no consequence or responsibility, and our environment pays for it. Litter is a symptom, not a cause, of a deep-seated systemic problem .
“I believe the transition to a fully circular future is necessary and possible.
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“If the UK government is serious about being a world leader in tackling pollution, closed-loop solutions such as deposit rebate schemes and extended producer responsibility reforms must be prioritized.”
A Heineken UK spokeswoman said: “We continue to make great strides in reducing plastic and making it easier for people to recycle our products.
“We’ve removed all consumer-facing plastics from our packaged products, our ‘Green Grip’ eliminates the need for plastic rings in cans and instead provides a fully recyclable and compostable cardboard solution that has so far been removed 235 tons of plastic.
“We are also founding members of Circularity Scotland, the Scottish deposit-return scheme administrator, and have been involved in the development of the UK and Wales scheme, which will create the necessary infrastructure for this very important but complex project.
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“We are aware of the impact of business on the planet and have committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions in our production by 2030 and net zero carbon emissions across our entire global value chain by 2040.”
A Coca-Cola UK spokeswoman said: “We are committed to reducing plastic waste and we don’t want to see any of our packaging end up where it shouldn’t be.
“All of our bottles have been 100% recyclable for many years, and our goal is to collect a bottle or can for every bottle or can we sell by 2025, as part of our commitment to help create a world without waste a part of.
“We also strongly support the introduction of a well-designed and implemented deposit return scheme (DRS). We have long advocated for the positive environmental impact of such schemes and we will continue to work with Westminster and decentralized governments to support DRS initiative.”
PepsiCo declined to comment.
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Josie Clarke is a PA consumer affairs reporter.
