--- title: Global Brands' Single-Use Plastic Use Spiked in 2021 description: The signatories of a global pact increased their use of virgin plastics last year, undoing recent progress to cut wasteful packaging. canonical: https://time.com/6227777/brands-single-use-plastic-increase-2021/ author: Alejandro de la Garza article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-11-02T21:09:15.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T14:59:08.193Z article:section: Climate og:title: Global Brands Pledged to Curb Their Plastic Addiction. Last Year Shows Their Promises Don't Add Up og:description: Signatories of a global pact increased their use of virgin plastics in 2021, undoing recent progress to cut waste og:url: https://time.com/6227777/brands-single-use-plastic-increase-2021/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte9b34230c021ca9c/698a370c4ee26215c631abfb/coca-cola-plastic-packaging-climate-change-environment-waste-recycle-resuse-compost.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Coke bottles. Several bottles of Coca Cola classic lined up og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Global Brands Pledged to Curb Their Plastic Addiction. Last Year Shows Their Promises Don't Add Up twitter:description: Signatories of a global pact increased their use of virgin plastics in 2021, undoing recent progress to cut waste twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte9b34230c021ca9c/698a370c4ee26215c631abfb/coca-cola-plastic-packaging-climate-change-environment-waste-recycle-resuse-compost.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Global Brands Pledged to Curb Their Plastic Addiction. Last Year Shows Their Promises Don't Add Up > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=ece933c5-cd43-4a3e-b890-dba11ba8fc5c&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1)  by [Alejandro de la Garza](https://time.com/author/alejandro-de-la-garza/)  ## Alejandro de la Garza Nov 2, 2022 9:09 PM UTC  Coca-Cola's use of plastic increased by nearly 100,000 metric tons between 2019-2021. Coca-Cola's use of plastic increased by nearly 100,000 metric tons between 2019-2021. Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket—Getty Images  by [Alejandro de la Garza](https://time.com/author/alejandro-de-la-garza/)  ## Alejandro de la Garza Nov 2, 2022 9:09 PM UTC Multinational corporations are failing to reduce their use of plastics fast enough, according to [a report](https://emf.thirdlight.com/link/f6oxost9xeso-nsjoqe/@/preview/1?o) released today, despite having pledged to use only reusable, recyclable, or compostable packaging by 2025. The annual progress report, compiled by the U.N. Environment Programme and the Ellen Macarthur Foundation, a nonprofit focused on creating sustainable business models, warns this packaging target “will almost certainly be missed.” Signatories of the Global Commitment pact, which includes companies like Nestlé and Mars, Inc., along with governments and other organizations, account for about 20% of the world’s plastic packaging market. Plastic waste has become an [increasingly significant](https://time.com/6173859/plastic-recycling-big-oil-damage/) environmental concern in recent years due to effects on ecosystems and potential repercussions for human health. Researchers found plastic particles in [human blood](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/24/microplastics-found-in-human-blood-for-first-time) for the first time earlier this year. But the companies in the pact have made only slight progress toward the goal, increasing the percentage of their packaging materials that won’t have to be thrown in landfills from 63.2% to 65.4% between 2019, when [the first Global Commitment report](https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/press-release-global-commitment-2019) was released, and 2021\. At the same time, the use of so-called “virgin” plastics—derived from new oil and natural gas rather than from recycled materials in a process that releases large quantities of greenhouse gas—is on the rise. This past year has seen a global leap in virgin plastic use, erasing a reduction of about 2.5% from the previous two years. Increases in the amount of recycled packaging the companies used were undone by a spike in their overall plastic consumption, which caused overall virgin plastic use to rise. **Read more:** [_U.S. Plastic Recycling Rates Are Even Worse Than We Thought_](https://time.com/6178386/plastic-recycling-rates-overestimated/) This comes after [last year’s report](https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/global-commitment-2021/overview) framed progress around virgin plastics in optimistic terms. “After decades of growth, virgin plastic use appears to have peaked for Global Commitment brands and retailers, and is set to fall faster by 2025,” read the 2021 update. This year’s report cites an economic rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic as a small part of the reason for the increased plastic use. More important, perhaps, is the fact that there has been “alarmingly little” progress by companies toward designing systems that eliminate the need for single-use packaging at all. “Without curbing the growth in overall plastic packaging use, it is unlikely that virgin plastic consumption will be significantly reduced,” the report said. Fossil fuel companies have also been investing [hundreds of billions of dollars](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/29/how-the-fossil-fuel-industry-is-pushing-plastics-on-the-world-.html) in new facilities to produce plastics, seeing it as a growth market for oil and natural gas as countries seek to phase out fossil fuel use in transportation. **Read more:** [_Big Oil Sold the World on a Plastics Recycling Myth. It May Be Too Late to Undo the Damage_](https://time.com/6173859/plastic-recycling-big-oil-damage/) Negotiators are meeting in Uruguay this month to debate a treaty to limit global plastic use. “\[The\] report pours cold water on the celebrated commitments made by big corporations who signed on to this high-profile project to eliminate plastic pollution,” Graham Forbes, head of Greenpeace’s global plastics project said in a statement. “This underlines the need for governments to ensure that the global plastic treaty**…**delivers major reductions in plastic production and use and accelerates a just transition to the reuse economy we need.” Not all the signatories of the pact, however, are equally to blame. Unilever, for instance, managed to cut its substantial virgin plastic consumption by 15%—or, more than 100,000 metric tons of plastic—between 2018 and 2021\. Coca-Cola, meanwhile, increased its use of virgin plastic by almost 100,000 metric tons between 2019 and 2021\. 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