Greenpeace urges Nestlé to act on single-use plastics
Environmental group Greenpeace accused Nestlé on Thursday of not doing enough to reduce single-use plastics polluting landfills and oceans.
Jennifer Morgan, executive director at Greenpeace International, said the world’s biggest food group should set a target for reducing single-use packaging and invest in alternatives focusing on refill and reuse.
“Nestlé is a major contributor to the plastic crisis and environmental problem that we have right now,” Morgan said on the sidelines of its annual general meeting in Lausanne.
Nestlé CEO Mark Schneider said he thought focusing exclusively on reusable packaging was wrong. “Why rely on just one lever when you have four or five you can use,” he said, citing the importance of biodegradable packaging and recycling.
Growing concern over environmental issues from climate change to plastic pollution has triggered a wave of global student protests, piling pressure on policymakers and business.
Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestlé are the world’s biggest producers of plastic waste, according to a report in 2018 from Greenpeace and the Break Free From Plastic movement.
Duncan Pollard, Nestlé’s head of sustainability, said the company agreed on the need to reduce plastic use. “But we need to make sure the new packaging solutions are safe and that consumers accept them,” he said.
Nestlé has said it used 1.7million tons of plastic packaging in 2018. Greenpeace said that was up 13%, but Pollard said Nestlé had since changed the way it measured plastic use and the true rise was below 3%.
Nestlé has vowed to make 100% of its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025 and push compostable and biodegradable materials polymers.
Greenpeace said Nestlé’s vows lack transparency, clear targets and significant investment. “Material substitution is a false solution,” Morgan said. “It will just shift the impact to forests and [farmland].”
17million the number of tons of plastic packaging used by Nestlé in 2018, up 13% according to Greenpeace, but below 3%, says Nestlé