What's Really
in Your Cart

The Coca-Cola Company has been the world's #1 plastic polluter for six consecutive years according to Break Free From Plastic's annual brand audit — its branded plastic was found in 40 of 42 participating countries in 2023, more than the next two polluters combined. PepsiCo holds the #2 or #3 spot every year. Both companies' recycling pledges have had measurable impact on neither their packaging volumes nor the amounts found in the environment.

AB InBev (Anheuser-Busch) controls 500+ brands globally and dominates distribution networks in ways that disadvantage independent craft breweries — locking up tap handles, wholesaler relationships, and retail shelf placement. Regulators have blocked multiple AB InBev acquisitions over the past decade for antitrust reasons. The "craft" aisle is less independent than it appears: many recognizable labels are quietly owned by the same two or three conglomerates.

Salty snacks are among the most aggressively engineered ultra-processed foods — formulated with precise combinations of salt, fat, and flavor compounds calibrated to override satiety signals. Research consistently links heavy ultra-processed food diets to obesity, hypertension, and metabolic disease. Separately, multi-layer foil-plastic chip bags are functionally non-recyclable in virtually all US curbside programs yet carry no on-pack disclosure of this.

Over 1 million acres of Canada's boreal forest — one of the world's largest carbon sinks, storing nearly twice the carbon of all recoverable oil reserves — are clear-cut annually, in part to produce single-use toilet paper. NRDC's annual Issue with Tissue scorecard has awarded Charmin, Angel Soft, and Kirkland F grades for six+ consecutive years for sourcing exclusively from virgin forest fiber, despite recycled-content and bamboo alternatives now being widely available.

Covered by the same NRDC Issue with Tissue framework as toilet paper — Bounty, Brawny, and Sparkle consistently earn F grades for relying on virgin forest fiber over recycled content. Bounty's market share fell from ~39% in 2008 as private label and sustainable alternatives grew, but the major brands have largely resisted meaningful reformulation while continuing to market single-use convenience as a feature.

The coffee industry ranks 4th among all industries for child labor prevalence (ILO). Smallholder farmers receive as little as 1–3% of a product's retail price, pushing families into poverty and children into the fields. Investigative reporting documented children as young as six working on Rainforest Alliance– and Starbucks-certified farms in Mexico, exposing major "ethical" certification schemes as insufficient. Nestlé has publicly acknowledged it cannot fully guarantee its supply chains are free of forced labor.

1,4-dioxane — a probable human carcinogen — has been detected as a manufacturing byproduct in major detergent brands. California enacted a 2 ppm cap, prompting some reformulations, but no federal disclosure requirement exists. Synthetic fragrances contain dozens of unlisted volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Single-dose pods introduce polyvinyl alcohol microplastics directly into wastewater systems, and their dissolution rate in cold water has been questioned by independent researchers.

Bottled water companies extract public water resources at near-zero cost and resell them at markups of up to 3,000× the cost of tap water. Nestlé/BlueTriton pumped 130M+ gallons per year from Michigan wells for just $200/year in extraction fees — while the Flint water crisis was unfolding in the same state. California regulators ordered BlueTriton to stop diverting water it had extracted without valid rights from a national forest spring for nearly 100 years. Indigenous communities from Ontario to California have been directly harmed by extraction near their territories.

The EPA estimates 4.2 million tons of disposable diaper waste are generated in the US annually, accounting for over 12% of all nondurable landfill waste. Diapers can take up to 500 years to decompose, releasing methane and potentially leaching pathogens into groundwater in the process. Scientific assessments have detected pesticides, glyphosate, and dioxin traces in commercial diapers, yet manufacturers face no federal requirement to disclose ingredients or test for these chemicals before products reach the market.

Several leading children's cereals exceed 40% sugar by weight, yet are marketed directly to children through cartoon mascots, toy tie-ins, and Saturday morning TV advertising. The FTC has raised concerns about food marketing to children for decades with limited regulatory result. EWG independent testing has also detected glyphosate residue in oat-based cereals including some Cheerios products — an herbicide the WHO classifies as "probably carcinogenic to humans."