United Kingdom, 31 October 2023 – The biggest global voluntary effort to tackle plastic pollution and waste shows it is possible to make progress on a pressing environmental issue, yet tougher measures are now needed to curb the crisis, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
Since 2018, more than 1,000 organisations have given their backing to the Global Commitment, led by the Foundation in partnership with the UN Environment Programme, to stop plastic packaging from becoming waste.
Over the past five years, business signatories – representing 20% of the world’s plastic packaging industry – have significantly outperformed their peers when it comes to taking positive action to tackle plastic waste.
They have substantially reduced their use of several problematic and avoidable plastic items, stabilised their use of virgin plastics, and more than doubled their share of recycled content.
By increasing their use of recycled plastics by 1.5 million tonnes per annum, signatories are leaving the equivalent of a barrel of oil in the ground every two seconds – as well as avoiding 2.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
However, with a large part of industry not yet taking action, and business signatories likely to miss key 2025 goals, the world is not on course to eliminating plastic waste and pollution, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s ‘Global Commitment Five Years In’ publication highlights.
The Foundation predicts 20 trillion flexible packaging…
