Here at The Climate Capitalist we’ve long criticized The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo for the multiple pernicious impacts of their products that they hide from the public:
-The massive CO2 emissions and toxic air and water pollution that is emitted by the petrochemical plants that make the plastic that goes into the 160 billion plastic bottles they sell every year. (That’s 20 bottles for every person on the planet.)
-The emissions and pollution from the diesel fuel burned by their trucks hauling their products through communities to consumers.
-The supposedly “recyclable plastic” bottles sold by these companies, which are generally only about 10% recycled. The rest gets dumped in landfills, rivers and oceans worldwide.
- The sugar, salt, fat and chemicals in their food and beverage products that cause obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other death causing impacts.
You’d think these ugly truths would have already caused a firestorm among consumers about buying these companies’ products, and among investors about buying their shares – but that hasn’t happened. Coke and Pepsi overwhelm adverse news by collectively spending $8 billion each year on marketing and advertising. That’s more than one dollar for each person on the planet. Much of that money is spent on traditional advertising but, more deviously, also includes large “donations” to scientific, academic, environmental and human health organizations (like the American Diabetes Association, The National Institutes of Health, the Red Cross, etc.). These contributions (often described as “partnerships”) have huge potential to blunt and influence what these organizations might say or do. Their advertising spending also makes most media companies unwilling to issue critical reports. Wall Street firms won’t say anything negative for fear or losing valuable banking business.
In addition, Coke and Pepsi lobby politicians to oppose deposit-bottle bills, soda taxes and efforts to limit advertising to children. The end result is that Coke and Pepsi revenues and profits continue to grow. They do all of this environmental and human damage so their senior executives can stay on path to becoming “hundred millionaires”. Coke’s CEO made $25M in 2023 and Pepsi’s took home $33M. That’s how unchecked capitalism works.
Now comes another disaster on the horizon. Microplastics in plastic water bottles has been reported for some time. It turns out that plastic bottles also contain massive amounts of even smaller plastic particles called nanoplastic particles. They are small enough to enter our blood streams and infiltrate our cells and organs. In January 2024, the National Institutes of Health reported on a new study by researchers at Columbia University. Using a new powerful imaging technique, they discovered:
“On average, a liter of bottled water included about 240,000 tiny pieces of plastic. About 90% of these plastic fragments were nanoplastics. This total was 10 to 100 times more plastic particles than seen in earlier studies, which mostly focused on larger microplastics.”
As an article published by New York-Presbyterian Hospital explains, “the study found several different types of plastics, including polyamide, polyethylene terephthalate, polyvinyl chloride, polymethyl methacrylate, and polystyrene in bottled water.”
Coke and Pepsi sell plain old water in plastic bottles under their Dasani and Aquafina brands, respectively. Coca-Cola is also the parent company of the maker of Smartwater and Vitaminwater, among its many brands.
However, the leaching and other processes that push micro- and nanoplastics into water in plastic bottles is likely to occur equally, or even more so, to all beverages packaged in plastic bottles. There’s reason to suspect even more plastic leaching from soda and other bottles pressurized with CO2 and filled with sugar, chemicals and ingredients like phosphoric acid (in Coca Cola). Also, the inside of all aluminum soda and beer cans is lined with the plastic building block Bisphenol A (BPA). Nobody yet knows whether that material sheds nanoplastics into beer and soda. And we also don’t know whether the “recycled” plastic that Coke and Pepsi use for some of their plastic bottles may be more prone to shedding plastic particles than virgin plastic.
The good news is you’re not stuck having to drink plastic-laden water and other beverages the rest of your lives. Studies show that tap water generally contains less than 10% of the amount of plastic as does water from plastic bottles. The least contaminated tap water seems to come from underground wells that plastic particles haven’t yet managed to infiltrate.
Moreover, by cutting plastic bottles out of your life, you’ll largely curtail plastic coming into your body. Studies have found that plastic from plastic bottles is the biggest source of microplastic that enters our bodies, even though we’re also exposed through the presence of plastic in other food packaging, and even from the air or contaminants that enter our bodies through our skin. The New York Times just this week published an excellent explanation of how pervasive microplastics are in modern society, and how to minimize our exposure.
That’s helpful as you might suspect that Nanoplastics are dangerous. Scientific studies are still in an early stage, but the British medical journal The Lancet reported late last year on likely impacts, using the umbrella term MNP, which stands for micro(nano)plastics:
“The summarized results suggest that exposure to MNPs can lead to health effects through oxidative stress, inflammation, immune dysfunction, altered biochemical and energy metabolism, impaired cell proliferation, disrupted microbial metabolic pathways, abnormal organ development, and carcinogenicity.”
That doesn’t sound too good. We suggest using filtered (where needed) tap water to make your drinks and buying beverages packaged in glass. Investors should also be concerned. A majority of Coke and Pepsi’s products come in plastic bottles and packages and plastic contamination may become an existential threat to their corporate existence. Will nanoplastics become the PFAS crisis of the big beverage and packaged goods companies?
