There is an increasing awareness that to combat climate change we should be moving away from fossil fuels. So the oil companies are switching from fuel production to plastic production. However, this report is not about the ever-expanding petro-chemical industry that is pumping more and more plastic into the world. Instead it shows how the largest users of plastic such as Coca-Cola, Colgate-Palmolive and Unilever deploy tactics to ensure that they evade accountability for their pollution.
According to Changing Markets Foundation, the investigations found:
- Big Plastic is a well-organized network of organizations that fight against proven solutions to the plastic pollution crisis through similar tactics across the world
- Voluntary commitments and group initiatives from the ten biggest plastic polluters are used to distract consumers and governments, enabling polluters to continue with business as usual
- Corporations work behind the scenes to delay and derail legislation and ensure they can continue flooding the world with cheap, disposable plastic packaging
- Plastic producers have co-opted the Covid-19 pandemic and capitalized on people’s fear to call for regulatory rollbacks and delays on environmental legislation