Page 4 - Packaging News Magazine July-August 2018

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COMMENT EDITOR
www.packagingnews.com.au July-August 2018
Of pledges and promises
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Lindy Hughson
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WHERE will you be in 2025? If you’re in FMCG packaging, it’s going to be a momentous year by all accounts.
2025 is the end of the timeline on some bold public pledges made by major brandowners in recent months in support of creating a circular economy for plastics – a global ini- tiative driven by the Ellen MacAr- thur Foundation in response to the mounting crisis of plastic waste in the world’s waterways.
Some of the world’s biggest plas- tics packaging users have got be- hind this initiative. Well known brands Unilever, Ecover, Danone [evian], L’Oreal, Mars, M&S, Pepsi- co, The Coca-Cola Company, Walmart and Werner & Mertz were frontrunners, all pledging to work towards a goal of using 100 per cent reusable, recyclable or compostable
packaging for their products by that deadline. Amcor is the first packaging sup- plier to commit, pledging to develop all its packaging to be recyclable and
reusable by 2025. Together these brands represent more than six mil- lion tonnes of plas- tic packaging per year. That’s a sizeable chunk but it’s only the tip of the nine billion tonne ‘plastic-berg’ the world has created since the 1950s, according to a 2017 study by a team of US researchers from the Univer- sities of California and Georgia, and the Sea Education Association. The study, the first attempt to measure all plastic ever mass produced, found that about seven billion tonnes of all plastic waste has end- ed up as trash, and that only nine
per cent of it has been recycled.
But I digress, so back to the pledg- ers. To my mind, the good thing about making such a public commit- ment is that it’s an unequivocal state- ment from a collective industry voice that things have to change fast, which will hopefully prompt other end-users to follow suit. It also means there is accountability – this can’t be an empty promise or, ulti- mately, the brands will bear the brunt of consumer backlash.
In Australia, the conversation around single-use plastics packag- ing is also gathering momentum. In the public domain it currently cen- tres around the vocal outcry against the supermarket bag ban (see page 7). In our industry, leaders are meeting to share ideas and gather opinions on how we can move purposefully towards a sustainable circular econ- omy for packaging, in line with Gov- ernment’s 2025 pledge.
In the last few weeks alone PKN hasattendedseveralforumswhere packaging waste has been the focus, and while opinions vary on the spe- cifics, there is accord that we need to move beyond coffee cups and super- market bags to advance workable so- lutions across all packaging for- mats... and that 2025 is but 6.5 short years away!
While many Australian compa- nies are meeting their sustainable packaging obligations, and investing in a variety of composting and recy- cling projects (see Briefs, page 8; and Bulk Packaging, page 36) there are still ‘free riders’ who aren’t pulling their weight. Not for much longer, however. The Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation has kicked off a national brand audit (see page 6), which will identify culprit com- panies and assist them to make the necessary changes.
The positive news is we have opened the dialogue, and while this conversation will probably continue well beyond 2025, for now let’s fix our eyes on the collective prize. Six to seven years is a very short time frame. There’s work to be done.
Lindy Hughson – Managing Editor
This can’t be an empty promise or, ultimately, the brands will bear the brunt of consumer backlash.”