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Covid-19 has brought more than its fair share of woes. Not least has been its deleterious effect on the environment. How? Well, it’s sent consumption of fizzy drinks from single-use cans and plastic bottles through the roof. And it’s derailed plans for the UK’s biggest-ever initiative to ensure drinks packaging is recycled, the deposit return scheme.
In short, it’s been a disaster for the Earth’s oceans – where the amount of plastic waste is expected to triple in the next 20 years, according to a paper published last July in the journal Science.
In 2020, shoppers took home 561.7 million more single-use cans of cola, lemonade, fruit carbonates and mixers than they did in 2019, bringing total sales to 2.9 billion cans. More than 710.4 million plastic pop bottles were taken home, a rise of 102.6 million [Kantar 52 w/e 27 December 2020].