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Waste & Recycling January 17, 2017 01:30:07 PM

Concerted efforts by the industry could push plastics packaging recycling rate to 70%

Paul Ploumis
ScrapMonster Author
The use of plastics has increased nearly twentyfold over the past 50 years.

Concerted efforts by the industry could push plastics packaging recycling rate to 70%

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): A new study by the World Economic Forum and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation with analytical support from SYSTEMIQ states that concerted efforts by the industry could push the recycling rate of global plastics packaging to as high as 70% from the current level of 14%. The report titled “The New Plastics Economy: Catalysing action” is produced as part of the New Plastics Economy initiative, launched in May 2016. It brings together leading organizations including The Coca-Cola Company, Danone, MARS, Unilever, and Veolia in redesigning the global plastics system.

According to the report, plastics have become the ubiquitous workhorse material of the modern economy. The use of plastics has increased nearly twentyfold over the past 50 years. Although plastics and plastic packaging are an integral part of the global economy, they are featured by significant economic and environmental drawbacks too. As per estimates, only 14% of plastics packaging is collected for recycling across the globe. Every year, nearly $80-120 billion plastic packaging material value is lost to the economy. The report presents a new way of thinking about plastics, aligned with the principles of the circular economy. It aims to harness the benefits of plastics while addressing its drawbacks.

The report recommends fundamental redesign and innovation of currently used plastics packaging, without which nearly 30% of them will be never recycled or reused. It highlights the need to boost material innovation in recyclable or compostable alternatives to the currently unrecyclable plastics packaging. In addition, the potential of chemical recycling and other technologies must be explored to reprocess currently unrecyclable plastic packaging into new plastics feedstocks.

At least 20% of plastic packaging could be profitably reused. The priority actions in the area of reuse include innovation towards creative, new delivery models based on reusable packaging, replacement of single-use plastic carrier bags by reusable alternatives and scaling up of reusable packaging in a business-to-business setting for both large rigid packaging and pallet wrap.

The remaining 50% of plastic packaging could be profitably recycled with concerted efforts on design and after-use systems. This could be achieved by implementing design changes in plastic packaging to improve recycling quality and economics, harmonizing and adopting best practices for collection and sorting systems, scaling up high-quality recycling processes, deploying adequate collection and sorting infrastructure and boosting demand for recycled plastics.

The New Plastics Economy Initiative is centered on three main goals. The first priority is to create an effective after-use plastics economy by promoting recycling and re-use of plastics packaging. It also aims to reduce leakage of plastics into natural systems and decouple plastics from fossil feedstocks by exploring and adopting renewably sourced feedstocks.

The initiative will continue to host six-monthly participant workshops to further drive the growth of projects launched in 2016. It must be noted that two participant workshops were held in 2016-one in May and the other in December. A publicly available ‘circular design guide’ will be launched during this month to support the shift to “circular” design thinking and systems perspectives and to inspire innovators, entrepreneurs and designers. In addition, it plans to launch two global innovation challenges to kick-start the redesign of materials and packaging formats.

 

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