and again, these allegations against to linda man of the band rom shine. we appreciate it. and with that now you're up to date on the w news coming up next, a documentary on coca cola as plastics. problem is always more on the website. the w. com, you can also follow us on social media. i'm sarah kelly and berlin. thank you so much for joining us. the, the tearing instead of responsive the global business of asbestos. this is not a legitimate business. the people that are in don't deserve to be treated with any kind of courtesy by the governments of the world. the never ending story of

asbestos starts june 21st on d. w. the . the sufferings industry produces 470000000 plastic bottles every year designed to be used just once and then thrown away a quarter of them made but just one company. coca cola had total of sales. currently use almost 3 times as much plastics, pets. okay. is the biggest the philippines is clearly struggling with the plastic pollution. urgent action is now beat it to end the plastic waste crisis. and as a global brand leader,

cook could pay for the way to go to the category they can make a difference. they have the scale that have the brands expertise to really drive, change the east, the world's largest soft drinks produce a really serious about turning the time in plastic waste the the the be used to be ready to. so you come fucking episode of the road or washed up on a beach in the 1950s, come with solving glass bottles that the company collected, washed and refilled. here's refreshment, you can enjoy quickly and conveniently at a place to put the bottle when you're through. you're going to see cents back if

you return the bottle enough to buy stick of bubble gum. the so wanted come start using single these plastic in the 1st place. the coca cola is getting around in the big to lead up by the 1970s homes to funds. what was it? it's a bit difficult the so when the beverage producers were selling the syllable bottles they have to pay for all of the costs of operations associated with getting the bubbles back, watching them, refilling them, etc. let's put them back in the rack. mack, when single use packaging was presented to them, they realize that they could effectively externalize all of those management costs onto the municipalities. you'll love them, and that is why it looked like such a good financial deal for them. and that's why they went for it. the coke was away,

the plastic good home, the environment in 1971 report commission by coke. compare the environmental cost of different types of packaging. it concluded that the returnable gloss, bulky, is the ecological container on excellence. the conch started using plastic anyway. the paint was never published. single use plastic is just a massive money, save the soul, all sorts of companies, including type dakota. they use incredibly cheap plastic to make that packaging. they put it on the market and then it's job done. it's gone. co owns are the $200.00 brands including splunk. a santa and 55 brands are bought in water and 2 moves bottles, add up to a lot of plastic. coats uses $3000000.00 tons of

it a year. equivalent to 200000 pumpkins every minute. the home for them and the fund dumped for limited public awareness of the plastic waste crisis reached a peak. the problem is now visual, it wasn't 20 years ago. we didn't have all these photographs on the internet of taps in the bellies of birds and turtles being choked by plastic. we have them now . we can't shake that from our our, our brains. we see it, it makes us upset. and it even makes leaders of beverage companies upset it's moved beyond an economic issue. this issue of, let's externalize the costs, where we can to one of an emotional issue. do i as a leader of a company want, this is my legacy. the thing is that the

see is get into office when they retire. when ceo's retire they will start to talk about sustainability and environments like what didn't you do that when you were in office? jake beckers spend 16 years at the coca cola company. when i was the, you know, consume is hate, excess, packaging. and the packaging they hate the most impressed brands spend a lot of money understanding, you know, that co target audience perceptions attitude to life, what's important to them. and so when blue planet to came along, people start to get very angry about plastic. i feel that then big companies like to kind of find themselves on the back foot. you know, they but they, but then now behind the cub, they know, having to play catch up in the face of the public backlash. coca cola stood by that single use plastic. both of those basic custom is still wanted them. but in 2018, they stepped forward with a plan to prevent them ending up as

a link to the launched with a slick social media campaign. they cooled it well without the waste. make punch to make the packaging 100 percent recyclable, use 50 percent, recycle content and collect and the cycle one bulk ok. for every one they sell by 2030. with full years since comfortable and states class, i cannot achieve its targets. and when it be enough to combat the company's plastic waste problem, so let's just break it down. coca colors world without waste projects. so the 1st one is on recycle ability. the truth is the cope packaging is recycle, whether it's peachy bottles, cans, cardboard. all those packaging items are highly recycled. so that pledge is

effectively already met conks plastic buttons made from polyethylene terrace, satellite p d t, one of the easiest plastics to recycle and con, prints to what we're cycle on nearly everyone. so kind of claiming that they want to make 100 percent of their products, recyclable is kind of a bit of a mis direction, because in most cases they already are recyclable. so they're not promising anything new. the question is, will it actually be recycled? kind of be recycled in that location, buried in the small print of that well, who got waste progress report. there's an admission comp says metrics, bottles, only recyclable where infrastructure exists. what happens in places where it doesn't

when you're living on a topical items like some more, it's very difficult not to become an environmentalist or a lover of nature. ready i've always enjoyed coke since i was young. and one of the reasons i actually was happy to drink coke is it was always bottled in glass and some more coke didn't have a plastic waste problem here because it strings had always been thought to locally and song and re fillable gloss. the good thing about the glass bottling was that people had an incentive to retain them because it was a deposit. and so most class was reused. february this year they switched from glass to plastic, completely. there were no more glass bottles, and it was all plastic. and that was a shop to be honest. in february 2021 closed its re fillable blind sparkling light and began shipping thousands of plastic bottles to some of them.

there was no real warning in within days to seize more plus the glittering around the place of, of coca cola in fender and sprite bottles. that we're obviously ones that are just come in because we haven't seen those ones before. there was no plastic recycling plant on some moment to get the cycle. the bottles would have to be collected and exported to straighten. yeah. we're a small island and we're in the middle of the south pacific population here. so i was only $200000.00 so to generate enough volume for us to actually set up a recycling facility is impossible. the reno runs the same charity that collects recycled with materials for x it has been a increase of plastic bottles with the switch of coke and i think co contribution

to one 3rd of the plastic bottle waste your time on co gave a donation to marina's charity to help with collect to mobile phones and it sets up a scheme that pays people $1.00 for every $23.50 both tools that they collect. but it's clear that conks efforts to prevent a new plastic bottles ending up as little a not working we rushed, we need about 1000000 bottles to fill out a 40 foot container to ship a 40 for the out of someone to australia. it costs roughly around about $6000.00 us dollars. we have yet to export our 1st contain us and we've never had any plastic lease time on the plastic bottles. coke. impulse dissimilar a 100 percent recyclable in theory. but in to maturity can ship them to australia,

not a single one, will be recycled. if we hadn't switched to plastic, we wouldn't have created that problem in the 1st place or we made something bad worse. and now we're having to work how to fix it. so it's a shame we even went down this path in the 1st place when meals coca cola to take part in this film. they declined our invitation, but they gave a written statement. on some of them, they said the wherever we sell our products, we're working to ensure they're a regional collection and recycling solutions so that none of our products end up in the environment. to further dr. recycling awareness and simila. coca cola is launching an education campaign to encourage consumers to recycle coke as well in the way to making its bottles. a 100 percent recyclable. but

globally, 44 percent of them. some $49000000.00 bottles each year. never reach a recycling plant, but comp 2nd page pharmacies to change all that. they say they will click one button ok for every 1 may sell by 2030. this could make a really big impact on plastic waste. put all day on track to achieve it. the 2nd pledge which is collecting one bottle back for every bottle or can they sell that one is going to be much more challenging to achieve that and literally means getting a 100 percent collection for recycling. and we know today they're not even close to it. the days really boost the biggest the fishes to the next week. i did it. victoria is

a new brand. is that ricky to see that the country that can you brand that we used to call the power bus because that we are losing the revised we are losing lift victoria when i go to the villages i submit plastics. i go to the lake. i see plastics. i visited revise. i see plastics. it makes me feel like we are losing so and naturally and beta mean company is they took a corner only in the brand. they produce all the print for 1000, but was by our that is almost 500000 plus voters in the print for i was like in some of our glossary fillable buttons, ones coming in uganda. but the country has seen a gradual shift to single use plastic. coca cola is the biggest for your

time. you've done as you can see, all of but we are finding coca cola photos. this is also find a product of coca cola. this is gail quote. once i get this quote here, so this is with you said by why should we see plastic everywhere? coca cola, the problem is not to the time. the problem is that there is a more plastic done to do is to system kind of course we sais do with a quick one but to, for each. but are they send a gun by the can never do that to the nearby choose the coca cola has a recycling plant and component capable of processing over $250000000.00 bottles

per year for the past 3 years. it has not run at full capacity because they couldn't collect enough photos. the plant long to utilize on informal waste tickets to do the collecting. this is informal ways because that connects 60 percent of all the plastic. there's recycled lively. it's never really keep off a system the, there is no one in that was who wishes to walk on the dumping sites. people come here because they have no choice. you what didn't i was on you on like $1.00. they are is here 7 days a week. they come from monday to sunday. the small steps is such a large organization and we focus on children room and go in that dumping sites on

my those whenever they see me children or is come running to me because they know maybe i have shoes. maybe i have something pick up of where we maybe not gimme a call or yeah. and then yeah, i don't know why don't you let them know that wichita, wichita over on the, because i'm on the line. when did you know that you grew up with send them to come here to the tv to be like many developing countries you can to doesn't have the results easy to sort of process its plastic waste here were cycle drinks, bottles a mix with watching food waste

t nappies and even data animals i don't think that have the capacity to collect by themselves because most of the plastic is dropped in. this is like these. i think they need these people. big plastic create is like coca cola or with those informal ways because a great deal waste, fix it collecting bad plastic bag. preventing it being bent and dumped into 10 companies need to insure waste because can add enough to provide for their families . coca cola could not provide information on how many bits both of these are collected in uganda. but it's, since it's working to help waste because the waste pickers are often some of the most vulnerable people in their communities that can include child labor and other unacceptable practices. to help combat this,

we recently developed a set of tools designed to help us understand and improve economic conditions for people working across the waste collection. gene conk says it's going to keep selling plastic buttons, but it promises to collect one for every one. it sounds like 2030 that's a 100 percent collection, right? yes. according to its own figures, on average across the well, it's currently collecting just 56 percent. the conks final page is to use 50 percent recycled content and it's packaging. this would reduce the amount of new plastic coke needs to make his bottles by hoff. how is it getting on? since 1990 there had been lots of coca cola pledges for recycled content and they have failed on all counts. in 1991 coke introduced both tools made from 25

percent recycled plastic. just 3 as linked to it phase the amount the bench come from is 10 percent recycled. plastic by 2005 chief just 4 percent a few years. linked to a new pledge 25 percent by 2015. they reach just 7 percent. a report published by coke in 2015 reveals that the company failed to reach its target because it encountered challenges including low supply with so many plastic bottles out there in the environment. why did coke struggle to get hold of enough for cycle plastic? a lot of companies make commitments about how they're going to increase the recycled content. that's great. exactly what needs to happen, but it increases demand then at the minute we're in a situation where the moans for restock material is really rising. recycling

companies like this one in the u. k. produced recycled plastic and send it to brands to use and they have packaging these uh bales of plastic cool p e t the plastic that we used to make drink bottles. this is a plastic type bottle, but obviously this is a nice state to be used. so the next stage is, gets cleaned up sterilized and turn back into the tooth grade material. and i have here the kind of material that we end up. we say this is flake, then that gets melted down tons of dependents intending to new both those favorite spouts, sofas, they drink, also ends up as a drink. but not every bottle can be made back into a new bottle. recycled plastic must reach certain hygiene standards before it can be used for food or drink packaging. in order to make sure that can seem is know that when they buy re cycle back to the safe we make sure that material that have food in it continues to have food in it. so if

something had a cleaning product in it, it's not free. great book tools that don't meet the standard will be recycled into low grade products. like plastic trains, full tech stops. some buttons don't make it to the recycling center. that's all things both where you might have an own about. you might be in a picnic and then you come find the recycling bin and it ends up in the near has been, then it doesn't get recycled. moving to any tiny recycle as well. does it have a nice night? we need to be more. we need to get back to wrapped in the shortage of both things coming back means that supplies coats with keep pace with them on the great recycle . plastic is now soon talk to global commodities. it could come get home live enough with cycle plastic. it risk missing its target. once again, i want to tell you become this barrier.

the every bottled, the coke has been investing in its own recycling facilities to produce more food, great, recycled plastic. the base closely promo shows of it's linked to it in the philippines, the, the president of coca cola, the philippines garris mcgowan was surprisingly open about the waste problem. we recognize it's only acceptable that all packaging ends of an oceans and landfills and faces where they should. and so in the philippines, we're taking the lead. but just as in uganda, owning the recycling plant doesn't mean the problem. so collection is the real challenge, the growing up i saw coca cola in glass bottles. i feel like st late eighty's. but then

early ninety's, the plastic bottles were introduced globally and its reach of course the shores of the philippines. coca cola has been sold in the philippines for over a 100 years. coca cola is very popular in the philippines. it's a coca cola nation. they're always number one in terms of beverage filipinos and traditionally by products in small amounts, according to that means, capitalizing on this culture. coca cola, both rooms have been getting smaller to which increases the quantity that need to be collected. look at this. all the small buffalo, so this is a crazy is creation of coca cola. so this kind of product that we,

filipinos has been regularly bombarded with advertisement from coca cola saying that the coolest drink ever of all this set. the bottles are supposedly recyclables, but it's not being collected properly. there's no system for collecting it properly . and there's no system of recycling it in this particular area people. and so i've seen our temporarily dump sites in our oceans in our rivers. all of these things in this on site majority of the ways that are here and you can see our plastic ways the philippines is clearly struggling with the plastic solution. we don't have enough manpower to collect all the ways only 21 percent

a p t boat tools currently collected for recycling in the philippines. just as in uganda without big investment in collection codes, recycling content is online to run up full capacity to produce the food great plastic coke needs. coke said that the challenges around recycling a collection in the philippines are not insurmountable, but will clearly require long term multi sector holistic approaches. and they said they are making a major investment to spur domestic recycling and increase production capacity for food. great, recycled p t. we are also launching the 1st 100 percent recycled plastic beverage bottles in the country with plans to further accelerate this coca cola failed to reach it through a cycle of content targets in the pulse because it couldn't get hold of enough for cycle material. we'd be different based on the recycled content of it's both tools

. this was in from 8.6 percent in 2018 to just 11.5 percent in point 20. at this rate, they go into full phone, show that 50 percent target petracola is an absolute must serve green washing. green washing is pretending that something is green, when actually it is anything but green. they have a whole history of broken promises when it comes to their commitments. so maybe they just hoping that this one will go away and everyone else gets of asset with me on the coat. if they thought they were on track to make that target, they said we are confident we can reach the goal of 50 percent recycled content. as a global average in beverage packaging, based on the progress we are seeing for recycled material and collection rate goals,

do go hand in hand in order to sustain high levels of recycled plastic globally. and at a local level, we must improve collection rates while koch, except the collection is crucial, there's little evidence of the company coming forward, concrete solutions to boost collection, right? and it turns out that with them from the stall that collecting recycling. good. so the plastic waste problem had very deep seated doubts about the ability of certain types of plastics to be recycled at all. either because of technical difficulties or because of collection difficulties. and if you can't collect enough of a product, it cannot be commercially recycled. the cost of collecting and processing

was often moved and the plastic was, was so the fledgling industry barely to call i would like to think that it'd been more energy and effort and money i suppose placed in developing a more viable recycling industry that you'd have a different result as the plastics industry, rental production of plastic on the problem is that recycling with tackle the waste . but recycling has barely made a dent. the only 9 percent of all plastic ever produced has been recycled from the very beginning, the cost of collecting processing and salting december, the recycling industry. and to make matters worse, it faces stiff competition. the, it's really important to understand that the vast majority of plastic is made from

fossil fuels. most new or virgin plastics, a made from chemicals derived from point for natural gas. oil is made use for energy and fuel to reduce global carbon emissions. sales of these a full cost to the client. the oil industry is counting on plastic to make up the shortfall. and the ramping up production recovery and recycling of plastic costs more money than buying virgin plastic food. great recycle b t as always, been more expensive and the budget equivalent. in 2020, it was double the price. the impact of plastic on our oceans is now well known. but plastic waste causes other serious problems to send more than 50 if it was purchased countries,

we do a lot of disaster response. hurricane slots. in a way around the world. we see prostate being bends all the time on street corners and nice and dumps. and we can see that was having very serious consequences for people's health and the climate the we see, minute your drink, especially about areas coming with the symptoms of as much trouble. how are you to be comfortably clinically the tax be hospitalized and the percentage of them and in bad outcomes? most of these, especially in the areas,

could it be that it to environment exposure as including air pollution? the air pollution income plot is caused by mixture of things, please and local plastic waste in the city. so in the area as we have people do not have a system to collect, to disengage and dispose of people, resorts to binding these garbage plus. because for the event switch, directory, toxic air pollution kind of cause damaged almost in the tissue in the body. but most of the tissues that affected the logs and the brain the rates of lung cancer, our also rapid increasing in uganda. in

a position where people do not smoke without too much pollution, be responsible. the good guy. ok. patients who have low diseases. they do stuff on us shut a we the electronic people who have asthma. it's like someone who's holding go to a mix up in the 9th when she can't breathe, when she is coughing. it's mixed use sad because you see someone struggling with life from a problem that could have been prevented, opprobrium, you can do something about globally around 40 percent of all white is burned or not been dumped. researches now revealing the impact this has on people on the planet to reduce the binding of its bottles and hit it's one without waste. tompkins,

coke would have to dramatically increase collection right across the well the but the price is another challenge. far too many of the bolts that do get collected contaminated and can be made into new bottles. so what's the solution? there's not enough food, great quality, plastics coming back and you need it to be good quality and clean. so we need to pose the systems. this is a system where every time you buy a fossil, you pay an extra charge, maybe $10.00 pence, maybe 20, you know it's only small. then you'll incentivize to take the box, the show, they give you the money box and this is called a return deposit scheme. and is in place across many countries in europe. germany, finland, denmark and sweden are among the countries that only have deposit systems for

plastic bottles in plants. and they, what all of them collect outputs of 80 percent of that buttons in the usa states with the public systems or both to bills. also top the recycling lead table space without or at the bottom. a deposit return systems are proven to work. they get 9 out of 10 bottles back, but they also collect exceedingly clean quality material. so we can put those bottles back into new bottles. so if deposit systems work so well, why don't more countries have them when i came to brussels in 2015, the beverage industry was very much loving against deposit return. there are a lot of tactics being deployed that corporate lobbyists can use and they're very, very effective. they will complain that the policy will affect their business and therefore affect local jobs. if you ever ask the beverage sector,

why do you fight deposits when they work? so well, they will typically tell you they're too expensive, they're inconvenient. they are administratively burdensome. so this is the fight that's going on behind the scenes. this briefing document for coca cola, there's lobbyist linked in 2016. so it's a policy, it's confident wanted to fight back against an under the fight back was recycling targets. deposit return programs and refill quotas. so we know what the sentiment at that time was from this the documents but since launching wild with that waste code is made to utah, they now have changed that position in some countries. for example, in scotlands quicker kind of came out and supports of deposit schemes because that's one of the few ways that they could actually get samples back and recycle

them into other bustles. we are now for the 1st time seeing these companies realize the deposit return is the solution for them. but is recycling even the onset is the real quick, a more efficient way to reduce plastic waste? a p t. both those are recyclable, but that doesn't change the fact that the main thing we need to do to solve the plastic price is, is reduce the amount of plastic being generated. in some countries, cars won't take a study of plastic bottles. and as the t v ads clearly show that designed to be, we failed every year in brazil, they're investing and refill. and some other countries like in south africa, which i think is a direct reaction to the public outcry of a single use plastics. one we fillable buffalo to replace $25.00 single use

bottles and present their replacing $200000000.00 every year twice and co clothing them out like reusable bustles, requires a lot of investment. they have to collect those bustles, they have to wash them and put them on the market. re fillable bottles, reduce the amount of plastic being generated. but congress has to pay to collect them. and that affects profit even though, because his own research shows that there is 3 times great to brand love and trust it. code dakota was to do something meaningful on the environment. but ultimately it comes down to shareholder value. and the thing about the shareholders, you know, they want, they tend to flesh. although conk says it's serious about combating its plastic waste problem. a big expansion of re fillable bottles is not part of it strategy. the single use prostate accounts for navy hall of conks total packaging

re fillable bottles, just over attempt coca cola is holding out hope that one day recycling will clear up its mass. meanwhile, they going to continue selling over 300000000 plastic bottles every day. for low income countries already button with pressing problems, plastic waste is a low priority, so the crisis is set to get was able to speak for the entire global. so countries we, i lift out the new or distracted use of, assessed in a bidding for companies like coca cola, d o. d without twisted, it is only may be applicable in the you get to right now, we are the ones the subsidy mall from the problems caused by plastic photo ship. globally, conch is not currently on track to achieve its wont without waste goals. and even

if it does, making buffalo some 50 percent recycle plastic means they'll still be using 50 percent of new plastic, requiring around one and a half 1000000 tons of it. equivalent to 52000000000 new bookings every year. ultimately i would have liked to have seen, our vision is to get out of virgin petroleum based plastic. wow, that's pretty cool. you know, all vision is to make of both those a 100 percent from recycle content. wow. and this by 2030 conch has not reached its goals that voluntary targets have absolutely no hook. if you don't meet your voluntary targets, there's no impact. we really, really need to see government step in. we need to see clear finding targets to force companies to reduce plastic that forces them to invest more in developing

reasonable systems. and so really just rethink how they do business. wal codes struggles to turn this dream into a reality. mountains of its plastic bottles appearing. um so what does con, have to say? we have been clear that the challenges are great through world without waste. we are hoping to shift the mindset from coca cola being the face of the problem to being the leader in finding solutions. we believe we are making good progress, but we have a long way to go. it's this is yesterday, this resort that were at actually did the coastal cleanup for about 2 kilometers of its beach. in the back of this truck is what they cleaned up. 250 kilos of plastic

garbage. let's have a coke bottles or here coca cola, coca cola, coca cola, coca cola, coca cola, coca cola, are we seeing the pattern here? so half of the bag was just one brand, coca cola, a clean this beach every single day, forever. and always get this much garbage. it has to change this has to stop because if not, what do we have left? the

of the cho, africa. they are hot to commodities beach and pansies, are being illegally treated as caps and kidney. and we're interested in our knowledge or national parks are found out. they want to raise awareness of the issue with a wide range of projects to protect, to pansy, africa in 30 minutes on d. w to own or not to well.

what about a sharing economy? it's a change in thinking is changing the economy to create something new the economics magazine in series made in german 90 minutes on d w. evelyn charmaya, welcome to my pod cast. loved matters that i advised, celebrities, influenza, and experts to talk about all playing loved data and yet today, nothing less the south, all these things and more and the new season of the fuck cause the mixture to tune and wherever you get your thoughts costs. enjoying the conversation because you know it's last matter the

this is dw news live from berlin. thousands are evacuated after a damn breach in southern ukraine, alicia's a torrent of flood waters, fears, mountains of a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe. as teeth and moscow accused each other of destroying the cost cut down also coming up.