Workers carry and organize plastic bottles in the Dongxiaokou village. Dongxiaokou village is a ... [+]
A commitment for global corporations to use only reusable, recycle or compostable plastic packaging by 2025 will not be met, according to a new report.
The report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and UN Environment Programme on the New Plastics Global Economy Commitment, which was launched in 2018, warns its 2025 goal of 100% reusable, recyclable, or compostable plastic packaging is becoming unattainable for most of the businesses who signed up to the declaration.
According to the Foundation’s plastic lead, Sander Defruyt, the main driver for not reaching this target is a lack of investment in recycling infrastructure and flexible packaging.
“We still haven’t seen a credible roadmap on how to deal with anything that comes in a bag or a wrapper,” he told Forbes.
He said those involved in the packaging and food industry need to work together with policymakers to come up with a credible plan to address the issue of flexible packaging waste.
“We do see a lot of well-intentioned efforts by individual companies, or organisation but they're not necessarily all going in the same direction, or not collaborating to make it work at scale,” Defruyt added.
The report claims that the share plastic packaging being used by signatories that is reusable has actually fallen in the last year to an average of 1.2%.
It also noted that the use of recycled content in plastic packaging has doubled in the past three years, from 5% to 10%.
Defruyt added the majority of companies are still driving virgin plastic use down, but a minority of companies are “skewing the average” by increasing the amount they use.
The report found since 2018, more than half – 59% – of brands and retailers have reduced their use of virgin plastics.
However last year, increases by some of the biggest users of plastic packaging resulted in an overall rise of 2.5%, reversing the falls seen in 2019 and 2020.
The reason some businesses have not hit peak virgin plastic is due to increases in their total plastic packaging use.
He added that while many of Global Commitment signatories have set qualitative targets to reduce the use of virgin plastics, many of them still do not have a strategy in place to increase and scale the use of reusable packaging.
“Many of them are doing small-scale pilots spread around the world, but in most cases, these pilots are not part of a broader strategy, which could lead to real learnings to scale them in the future,” he added.
“That's why we are calling on all brands and retailers to actually have a proper re-use strategy in place, because we know we won't recycle away out of this.”
In September, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the WWF brought together 85 different organizations, financial institutions, and NGOs, to launch the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty.
The coalition plans to have a “ambitious” voice in the United Nation’s upcoming negotiations for a global treaty to end plastic pollution.
Defruyt said many businesses are now saying that they “need to be regulated or this is never going to work”.
“There's much more we can do on a voluntary basis, but at the same time, voluntary alone won't be enough,” he added. “We’re going to need policy as well. Governments should not just wait for the UN treaty on plastic, they should also start acting in the meantime.”
