Letter of proposal | calls for the most polluting brand of beach garbage, which urgently needs to fulfill its environmental protection responsibility.

Since 2018, the environmental protection organization Shanghai Rendu Ocean Public Welfare Development Center (hereinafter referred to as "Rendu Ocean") has regularly issued beach garbage brand monitoring reports every year to show the brand distribution in beach rubbish. In order to call on relevant enterprises and consumers to be more clearly aware of the impact of our production and consumption behavior on the environment.

On June 8, 2020, Rendu Ocean released the newly released "2019 Beach garbage Brand Monitoring report". According to the report, the 2019 coastal garbage monitoring project "guarding the coastline" has been carried out at 58 monitoring sites in 36 cities across the country. Among 190000 pieces of coastal garbage, a further 7327 pieces of brand garbage have been identified (brand recognition rate is about 3.8%). Among them, alcoholic beverage garbage reached 3966, accounting for 54%. In terms of the number of brands, 2134 brands were recorded, with the largest number of snacks, accounting for 39%.

According to statistics, the top 10 brands with the most garbage in alcoholic drinks are: Yibao, Master Kang, Coca-Cola, Nongfu Mountain Spring, Wa, Jingtian, Dongpeng Beverage, Yili, Mengniu, Yinlu.

According to the monitoring results of beach garbage brands in 2019, beverage brands ranked among the top 10 brands.

Data Source | Rendu Ocean

The total number of brand spam of snacks is 1827, with a total of 884 brands. Ranked first is the Kang Shifu brand held by Kang Shifu Holdings Co., Ltd. The most rubbish snack brands are: master Kang, Shuanghui, Wangwang, Taste Wang, Dali Food, Golden Gong, Haitian, Yinlu, Xu Fuji, Xi Zhi Lang, Yili.

According to the monitoring results of beach garbage brands in 2019, snacks are among the top 10 brands.

Data Source | Rendu Ocean

The report also makes statistics on the packaging types of all brand waste and finds that nearly 90% of the brand waste packaging types are plastic, including plastic bottles, plastic packaging film, and so on.

Combined with the data of drinks and snacks, we can see that Shifu Kang, Yili and Yinlu appear on the list of snacks and beverages at the same time. The total number of pieces of rubbish under the Kang Shifu brand in the two categories is as high as 596. It is the largest number of brand junk pieces in 2019.

It is worth noting that for these companies that have been on the list many times since 2018, except that Coca-Cola has made clear plans to solve the problem of plastic waste, such as making all packages recyclable by 2025, other enterprises have not issued clear plans to solve the problem of plastic pollution in public channels.

The use of disposable plastics will be unavoidable.

Lead to great pollution of marine ecology

Almost half of the plastic waste discarded around the world today was produced after 2000. Global plastic production in 2018 was 359 million tons, and nearly half of these plastic products are disposable plastic packages. in some remote areas, such as the seaside, or where garbage is mismanaged, plastic waste is easily lost to the environment, especially those that cannot be recycled.

A large amount of plastic waste into the ocean has caused a series of problems harmful to the marine ecosystem, such as accidental feeding, entanglement, overturning and so on. The toxic and harmful substances such as heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants carried or adsorbed by marine plastic waste have research records of potential disease and even death to marine animals and plants, and the catch of these toxic and harmful substances may affect human beings through the food chain.

Reduce the entry of plastics into the environment

The leading enterprise is needed to play its leading role.

Work together with the government and consumers to promote

In the sampling data of marine plastic waste, the most brand waste is fast-consuming products such as beverages and snacks. FMCG companies rely on disposable plastic to package goods, and their business models use a lot of this cheap packaging material-without having to pay for collection or discarding. The reality has made it increasingly clear that mass production of disposable plastics is an irresponsible decision, and these companies have transferred the cost of maintaining the environment to local communities. Plastic continues to accumulate in our oceans, streets, rivers, landfills and soil.

Here, we call on fast consumer enterprises that rely on disposable packaging to make changes, especially those that play a leading role in the industry and have been on the list of beach garbage brands for many times to take action as soon as possible.

The details include:

1. Regard disposable plastic reduction as the primary goal for enterprises to solve the problem of plastic pollution, formulate quantifiable plastic reduction targets and timetables, and disclose information such as enterprises' plastic reduction plans, plastic consumption and recycling to the public. in particular, listed enterprises should actively disclose the information of their environmental protection responsibilities, so that the society can supervise the pollution control of enterprises.

two。 The production and use of problematic plastic packaging, such as polyvinyl chloride and polystyrene plastics, should be avoided, as these plastics contain harmful substances, have a higher risk of pollution and low recycling value, and should also avoid the production and use of small plastic packaging / supplies that are not conducive to recycling, such as food in small packages or toiletries, straws, etc., because of their small size, they are not easy to be recycled and easily lost to the environment.

3. We should actively invest in the development of reusable packaging or redesign new product delivery models to replace the product delivery models that rely on disposable plastic packaging and provide consumers with sustainable product packaging models.

4. Under the circumstances that it is unavoidable to use disposable plastic products, enterprises should actively improve plastic recycling, participate in the establishment of domestic producer responsibility extension system, and actively improve the resource recovery system with relevant government departments and all sectors of society.

5. Be cautious about using biodegradable plastics as a solution: first, biodegradable plastic products are still disposable products, and the consumption of a large number of disposable products will lead to accelerated resource consumption. Second, at present, it has not been realized that biodegradable plastics can be classified and treated in cities and towns. The promotion of biodegradable plastics in the market may not only affect the recovery quality of traditional plastics, but also difficult to ensure the complete degradation of this material.

For consumers, we can also start with ourselves, reduce the use of disposable plastics and choose reusable products. Integrate plastic reduction into daily life; participate in garbage sorting and do not litter. At the same time, give full play to the supervisory role of individuals, promote enterprises to carry out environmental protection actions, and say "no" to environmentally unfriendly products.

The basic principles put forward in the "opinions on further strengthening the Control of plastic pollution" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission in January this year: "guided by recyclability, easy recycling and degradability, we will develop and promote performance-up-to-standard, green, economical and applicable plastic products and alternative products, and cultivate a new model of new business type that is conducive to standardizing recycling and recycling and reducing plastic pollution." Further consideration needs to be given to how to implement it in the fast consumer industry in the future. In addition to strengthening garbage management, relevant government departmen