You're reading: Largest soft drink producers in Ukraine face challenges recycling plastic

Piles of plastic bottles are a common sight in derelict areas of Kyiv, a feature so widespread that it is hard to imagine any bin or landfill without a traditional mountain of empty bottles at the side.

The international non-profit organization, Break Free From Plastic, names two brands as responsible for most of such plastic pollution in Europe – they are world’s biggest soft drinks makers, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo, who sell most of their beverages in plastic bottles that take up to 400 years to degrade.

These global brands are busy operating in Ukraine too, where their drinks are leading in terms of the volume of sales. PepsiCo made $64 billion globally in net revenue in 2018. And the brands say their popularity keeps growing.

An increase in consumption of bottled beverages, in turn, implies an increase in plastic waste. And while most European countries recycle plastic bottles, Ukraine has weak regulations regarding waste management, which has serious environmental consequences.

The global soft drink giants are now trying to fix that by supporting several waste management programs in Ukraine.

PepsiCo Ukraine CEO Marek Tomalak says waste management is an “important question” for his company.

But Tomalak also praises plastic packaging as light, cheap, easy to transport and durable. So for him, the problem is not the plastic itself – it’s how to collect and reuse it. And according to Tomalak, PepsiCo is eager to take responsibility for that in Ukraine.

The company – along with Coca-Cola and others – started with the rollout of a recycling site in Vyshgorod, a Kyiv Oblast city of 28,000 people located 20 miles north of the capital. The two brands envisage the creation of infrastructures in the city for the collection of solid household waste as well as carrying out educational work among the population.

“We use the city as a test for collecting packaging waste, and we have invested in the setting up of collecting bins,” Tomalak said, claiming that, even while just testing, the recycling site still collects a lot of waste.

The producers co-partner with the authorities in an effort to collect and recycle packaging waste. Tomalak is sure it is a beneficial system for every party of the production and waste circles: producers can save money by using recycled bottles, the state reduces its budget on waste management, and Ukrainians have less garbage to deal with.

When asked about the recycling site, a spokesperson of Coca-Cola, Natalia Nikitina, described it as a system “where the business takes responsibility for collecting and further packaging recycling.”

Nikitina also said that the company supports such a not-for-profit recycling association as Zero Waste School managed by the Klitschko Foundation and works with No Waste Ukraine on several projects.

Apart from that, both companies take part in the Extended Producer Responsibility program, which means that they include the cost of recycling in the price of their drinks.

By giving a financial responsibility to manufacturers, it provides incentives to prevent waste at the source. Products made from recycled materials are cheaper, which leads to cost reduction. This process encourages producers to design eco-friendly products.

On the other hand, a story published by U.S. investigative media The Intercept in October 2019 shows that Coca-Cola actually undermines the recycling efforts through reverse lobbying. Financing ecological association and promoting consumer responsibility could be part of a strategy to put the waste responsibility on customers rather than the company, the journalists reported.

The investigation insists that “much of the company’s international largesse seems designed to encourage a sense of personal responsibility for waste,” pushing forward the message that consumers are to blame for the problem.

When asked for a comment, Nikitina answered: “Grants are awarded by the Coca-Cola Foundation to charitable organizations to support various community improvement initiatives, including local recycling efforts.”

Meanwhile, Coca-Cola’s Annual Clean-Up Day initiative united more than 1,000 employees of the firm and their families all over Ukraine to collect and sort more than 12.5 tons of plastic, glass, and paper on a volunteer basis.

Not enough

PepsiCo has joined the non-profit Alliance to End Plastic Waste – which brings together plastic producers, oil companies and other consumer goods companies – to improve recycling.

Facing public pressure over its contributions to plastic pollution, PepsiCo had to cut ties with the Plastics Industry Association in July 2019, a trade association representing the plastics industry.

Still, in September, a worldwide brand audit in 51 countries by Break Free From Plastic concluded that PepsiCo is still one of the biggest polluters on the planet. In the report, Break Free From Plastic pushed for big companies to use only reusable plastic.

In Ukraine, a brand audit initiative conducted by eco-activists showed that, after analysis of the collected packages, Pepsi packagings were on the top of the list in Kyiv.

The head of the ecological organization Druge Zhittya, Serhii Volkov, remains skeptical about Coca-Cola’s and PepsiCo’s corporate social responsibility projects, which, he thinks, could also be misunderstood by Ukrainians.

“People might think that all the waste will be recycled by these companies. And that we can continue to consume them and the company will take the responsibility,” Volkov said.

Volkov also said the companies are trying to fine-tune a model of separate collection, but a clearer message is needed to do it correctly.

At the end of the day, the expert insists that the decision about creating a proper system of waste management will have to fall on the shoulders of the government, not on enterprises.

Kyiv Post staff writer Igor Kossov contributed to this report.