Concerned citizens suing French food company Danone for using plastics

 Jan 10, 2023 16.17 GMT

Three environmental organisations are suing Danone, a French yoghurt and bottled water corporation, for allegedly not doing enough to decrease its plastic impact.

According to the organisations, the maker of Evian and Volvic mineral water was not carrying out its obligations under a ground-breaking French law.

The 2017 "duty of vigilance" law mandates that major French corporations and their supply chains monitor issues related to human rights and the environment. As part of a rising trend in climate litigation, non-governmental organisations are using it more frequently against multinational corporations.

A brand audit conducted in December identified Danone as one of the top 10 plastic polluters in the world, along with Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestlé.

"Danone is slogging forward without a genuine plan to deal with plastics, despite significant alarm from climate and health experts and customers, as well as a legal need to face up to the issue," said Rosa Pritchard, an attorney for ClientEarth, one of the groups initiating the case. "Entirely quiet on plastics," she said, was the company's "vigilance strategy," which was required to outline the company's environmental and social implications.

Of all plastic garbage, just 9% is ever recycled. Plastics are expensive, difficult to recycle, slow to decompose, and polluting to burn. They decompose into tiny, pervasive particles that harm animals and enter the food chain.

Plastic output has increased dramatically over the past seven decades, from 1 million tonnes in 1950 to 460 million tonnes in 2019, and it is predicted that it will treble again by 2060. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the majority of the garbage is disposed of in landfills, in incinerators, or spills into the environment.

Danone stated that it will reuse, recycle, or compost plastic packaging by 2025.