Corporate pledges to recycle or lower plastics not helpful in reducing plastic use: study

A worker carries compressed plastic bottles collected by volunteers and fishermen from the Nile to build a plastic pyramid ahead of World Cleanup Day in Cairo, Egypt, Sept. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

A newly released study reveals that corporate pledges to recycle or reduce plastics may not be helpful in reduction of plastic use overall.

According to the study published in the peer-reviewed journal One Earth, many large companies committed to reducing plastic use are focused on “recycling” rather than virgin plastic reduction, making the commitments less meaningful.

The study looked at the top 300 Fortune 500 companies, of which 72 per cent had pledged to reduce plastic pollution.

“Most of the commitments place more emphasis on plastic recycling and commonly target general plastics and packaging,” according to the study authors. “They are important but partial solutions if we are to comprehensively address the plastic pollution problem.”

The study also highlights the practice of “lightweighting,” which is the practice of marginally reducing the volume of plastic used to package a particular product.

“We found that multiple companies, such as the Coca-Cola Company and Walmart, are producing lighter and smaller plastic products (e.g., bottles and bags),” the authors wrote. “This ‘lightweighting’ of plastic is considered an insufficient response because companies may reinvest this savings into markets that involve new plastic products and/or increase the total mass of plastic produced.”

Maintaining an emphasis on recycling and lightweighting by companies is unlikely to keep pace with growing plastic pollution levels, according to the study.

“Between 1950 and 2017, plastics production increased 174-fold and is forecast to double again by 2040,” the authors wrote.

According to the researchers, as of 2015, about 79 per cent of global plastic waste ended up in landfills or the natural environment. Only 9 per cent was recycled and 12 per cent was incinerated.

The authors suggest that scientific community should keep monitoring major companies in terms of plastic use and also the effects that plastics are having on the planet.

Reporting for this story was paid for through The Afghan Journalists in Residence Project funded by Meta.