Worst plastic polluting corporation to help clean plastic from Ontario lakes

Mega-corporation The Coca-Cola Company, which has consistently ranked atop or among the world’s worst corporations for plastic pollution, has announced it will sponsor a fleet of robots to help clean up the Great Lakes.

The beverage giant announced on Friday that it is partnering with Canadian non-profit Pollution Probe on the company’s Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup initiative, the largest such endeavour on the continent.

Coca-Cola shared in a press release that, as part of its role in the partnership, it will sponsor a fleet of new “remote-controlled, mobile waste collectors” known as PixieDrones that will be used to collect floating debris — including the very plastic bottles mass-produced by the soft drink titan — flowing into the Great Lakes.

The Coca-Cola PixieDrone will skim the surface of lakes removing organic, plastic, glass, metal, paper, rubber, and other materials. Coca-Cola states that the drones can collect approximately 160 litres worth of waste — equivalent to the volume of an average bathtub — in a single six-hour charge.

These drones have already been field-tested along Barrie’s Lake Simcoe waterfront and will be rolled out in other locations on the Great Lakes starting next spring.

Coca-Cola PixieDrone. CNW Group/The Coca‑Cola Company

“We are proud to support Pollution Probe on this important initiative,” said Avi Yufest, senior director of public affairs for the Coca-Cola Company in Canada.

Yufest acknowledged Coca-Cola’s role in the rising quantities of plastic in the Great Lakes, stating, “our company recognizes its responsibility to help address the plastic waste crisis.”

“Projects like this, in addition to packaging innovations and recycling efforts, are one of the ways we are working to help keep our waterways and environment clean from plastic debris,” said Yufest.

While the new initiative is undoubtedly good PR for Coca-Cola, the company’s involvement could be read as little more than brand damage control through an environmentalist lens.

According to the Rochester Institute of Technology, over 22 million pounds of plastic alone finds its way into the Great Lakes every year, and one can safely assume that at least a decent portion of this waste originated on Coca-Cola’s production line.

However, similar waste collection efforts have already yielded impressive results. As of 2024, the Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup initiative claims to have filtered an estimated 12.2 billion litres of water and removed nearly 200,000 pieces of floating waste from the massive inland lake system.