Break Free From Plastic released its 2019 Brand Audit and asked others to get involved and demand the top plastic polluting producers be held accountable. Earth Island Institute is doing just that. They have filed a lawsuit against the top ten plastic polluters named in the Audit, including the 2 years-running plastic pollution leader Coca-Cola, followed by Nestle and PepsiCo.
This lawsuit has been filed on behalf of Earth Island and several other fiscally sponsored projects to protect marine environments and stop plastic pollution.
Sumona Majumdar, general council for Earth Island talks about the lawsuit:
“Fundamentally, the lawsuit seeks to hold corporations accountable for their share of plastic pollution and their claims that plastic packaging is recyclable. For too long, they have pushed those costs onto the public, and that includes nonprofits like Earth Island that are using charitable funds to clean up their mess.”
The top three mentioned are responsible for a combined 14 percent of the plastic pollution in the oceans, as the audit shows. Yet, up to this point, these companies have held very little responsibility for the pollution they’re creating. Instead, they have spent millions of dollars on misinformation campaigns, which shows they are well aware of the harmful environmental effects.
The lawsuit was filed in California state court and includes negligence, public nuisance, and breach of warranty. The lawsuit is similar to the ones filed against Big Tobacco, Big Oil, and Big Pharma, who similarly had spent millions deflecting blame.
Majumdar points out that the Big Plastic industry has been using similar tactics to these other industries:
“These companies push a product and then create misinformation campaigns so the public isn’t fully aware of the harms of the products when making purchasing decisions.”
Much of the misinformation surrounding plastics is that they are recyclable. However, only 9% of the estimated 6.3 billion tons of plastic have ever been recycled. The rest either ends up in landfills, gets incinerated, or ends up polluting the ocean.
The President of Earth Island’s Board of Directors, Josh Floum, said:
“This is the first lawsuit directly to take on these plastic peddlers who for years have spread the fake narrative that their products can be recycled when they know in many cases this is simply not true.”
Rounding out the top 10, the other companies named in the lawsuit are; Clorox, Crystal Geyser, Mars, Danone, Mondelēz International, Colgate-Palmolive, and Procter & Gamble.
William M Dermody Jr is a spokesman for the American Beverage Association, which represents Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and other non-alcoholic beverages; he issued a statement:
“America’s beverage companies are already taking action to address the issue by reducing our use of new plastic, investing to increase the collection of our bottles so they can be remade into new bottles as intended, and collaborating with legislators and third-party experts to achieve meaningful policy resolutions.”
It’s rather comical that Dermody said they are already taking action. This has been a global problem for many years. The only action at all is merely a reaction to the widespread knowledge that they produce a vast majority of the pollution.
Abigail Aguilar, a plastic campaign coordinator for Greenpeace Southeast Asia, pointed out in October they have done little up to this point:
“Recent commitments by corporations like Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and PepsiCo to address the crisis, unfortunately, continue to rely on false solutions like replacing plastic with paper or bioplastics and relying more heavily on a broken global recycling system.”
As the Earth Island Journal points out, hopefully, this is the first of many lawsuits against the Big Plastic polluters to hold them accountable. After the suit was filed, Dianna Cohen, CEO and co-founder of Earth Island’s Plastic Pollution Coalition, said:
“This lawsuit is a step towards a world free of plastic pollution. The writing is on the wall that the system that has been created is not sustainable.”
