As you read this, a sea turtle is likely choking on what it thought was a jellyfish. The sea turtle is just one of approximately 100,000 marine mammals that will die this year from mistaking our plastic waste for food. Plastic is now so pervasive that recent research has found it in our brains, placentas, lungs, and vital organs-there's nowhere it hasn't reached, including inside us.
The amount of plastics produced and flowing into the environment has reached crisis point, with approximately 400 million tonnes of plastics produced every year and this number is set to triple by 2060.
In recent years, Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) giants and multinational corporations have increasingly promoted design changes as a solution to the plastics crisis. They have introduced minor packaging modifications to make their plastics more "recyclable", "reusable", or even "circular". Let's be clear, these are greenwashing tactics they are deploying rather than tackling the root problem, overproduction.
Dismantling the greenwashing narratives: design changes cannot solve the plastic crisis
One of the most obvious instances of design-driven greenwashing is Coca-Cola's decision to switch Sprite's iconic green bottles to clear ones, claiming it enhances recyclability. In reality, these clear bottles are not widely recycled with or without the design changes. According to the Break Free From Plastics annual brand audit, Coca-Cola has emerged as the number one polluter of branded plastics in the world for five consecutive years. The switch to clear plastic bottles has done nothing to curb the overall volume of plastic waste in the environment from Coca-Cola; rather, this move just changed the color of waste reaching the landfills and oceans
Another example is Procter & Gamble's (P&G) Downy fabric softener "refill pouch" system, marketed as using less plastic than traditional bottles, reducing environmental impact. However, in practice, these refill sachets are mostly single-use, have almost zero buyback system for waste pickers and contribute to even more plastic waste being discarded into the environment than the original recyclable bottles. Reuse systems are supposed to prevent more plastic waste reaching the environment while providing the services needed. This misleading P&G initiative allows them to continue polluting and diverts attention from more effective sustainable alternatives like real refill and reuse stations.
Similarly, the European Union's bottle cap regulation designed to keep caps attached to plastic bottles to prevent littering is another greenwashing tactic. Since the caps are also made of single-use plastic, this design change does little to prevent both plastic bottle and cap from ending up in the environment as fewer plastic bottles are effectively recycled or repurposed. Rather than tackling the root problem of single-use plastics overproduction, these design tweaks and approaches allow corporations to claim sustainability progress while avoiding true accountability.
Real solutions to the plastic crisis
The plastics crisis cannot be solved by adjusting packaging aesthetics or making minor modifications that fail to address the core issue of plastics overproduction. The world urgently needs drastic plastic production cuts-at least 75% by 2040-to slow environmental damage and protect human health.
Coca-Cola should return to glass refill bottles and ditch plastic packaging. This will in turn deliver the commodity in a safer manner to customers while also providing a safer and healthier environment free of plastic pollution, a social responsibility they owe to the people and planet.
P&G on the other hand, should decentralise their supply chain by providing refill stations for their commodities in retail stores where users can refill their one-time purchase of refillable containers rather than use single-use refill sachets.
Moreover, stakeholders must invest and support infrastructure that enables decentralised, large-scale, sustainable circular refill and reuse models that can deliver commodities in a hygienic and environmentally sound way rather than single-use linear models. Refill and reuse systems will not only curb plastics pollution but also halt mass production of single use packaging systems whether its paper, aluminum, plastics or any materials used, alleviating resource overstretch and over exploitation of earth minerals.
By working on the above solutions, industries will be able to supply their goods and services while doing more to stop our environment from being scarred by the shackles of the plastics crisis.
Join us in demanding a strong and ambitious Global Plastics Treaty
The shift towards a world with less plastic is within reach, only if we reject corporate greenwashing and push for systemic solutions. We must demand a Global Plastics Treaty that addresses the full lifecycle of plastics-from production to disposal-because plastic pollution is a systemic crisis, not a design flaw.
A Global Plastics Treaty that prioritizes drastically reducing production over recycling myths and misleading design claims is the step we need to take to end the age of plastics once and for all.
Will you join the movement demanding a treaty that truly tackles plastic pollution?
Gerance Mutwol is Plastics campaigner at Greenpeace Africa.
