Manufacturers use method that labels plastic as ‘circular’ and climate-friendly, despite being mostly fossil-based
Europe’s supermarket shelves are packed with brands billing their plastic packaging as sustainable, but often only a fraction of the materials are truly recovered from waste, with the rest made from petroleum.
Brands using plastic packaging – from Kraft’s Heinz Beanz to Mondelez’s Philadelphia – use materials made by the plastic manufacturing arm of the oil company Saudi Aramco.
The Saudi state-owned holding opposes production cuts under the UN plastic treaty and is the world’s largest corporate greenhouse-gas emitter (over 70m tonnes up to 2023).
Aramco’s petrochemical subsidiary, Sabic, along with other major players, devised a successful way to rebrand their harmful business as “planet saver.” They label plastic as “circular” and climate-friendly, although in practice it remains almost entirely fossil-based, exacerbating global warming and the plastic crisis.
