Image: Pawel Czerwinski via Unsplash
Coca-Cola Foundation has awarded $15 million to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to enhance plastic waste management efforts in Asia, Sustainable Plastics reported.
Approximately 80% of the world’s plastic waste that ends up in oceans originates from Asia, where sixteen out of the twenty most polluted rivers globally are situated.
The surge in plastic waste can be attributed to imports from Western countries, the growing demand for single-use plastics, and deficiencies in waste management infrastructure.
Coca-Cola aims to tackle these issues by financing UNDP’s plastic waste management projects in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Maldives, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam.
Last week in India, a three-year program was initiated to enhance plastic waste management, encourage recycling, minimise plastic leakage into the environment, develop country-specific solutions and promote regional cooperation.
The program seeks to inspire policy changes and community-level actions to reduce and eliminate disposable plastics and improve waste workers’ livelihoods by adopting and spreading best practices throughout the region.
The program will expand successful initiatives by developing innovative business models for waste collection and recycling, providing technical guidance on environmental best practices, and leveraging the latest technology to enhance collection and recycling processes, ultimately aiming to reduce plastic leakage.
The Coca-Cola Company has implemented several initiatives to minimise its environmental impact, such as increasing the use of post-consumer recycled materials by 17% from its 2019 levels. Additionally, it has launched the ‘World Without Waste’ initiative, which focuses on creating more sustainable packaging and aims to collect and recycle one can or bottle for every one sold by 2030.
Despite these efforts, the company has raised its usage of virgin plastic by 6% from 2019 to 2023 and has abandoned its goals for reusable packaging.