Day: August 6, 2020

Unilever has committed to reduce plastic waste across its portfolio and help create a circular economy for plastics. The pledge includes halving its use of virgin plastic, by reducing its absolute use of plastic packaging by more than 100,000 tonnes and accelerating its use of recycled plastic, and helping to collect and process more plastic packaging than it sells.

Unilever’s commitment will require the business to help collect and process around 600,000 tonnes of plastic annually by 2025. This will be delivered through investment and partnerships which improve waste management infrastructure in many of the countries in which Unilever operates.

As the owner brands including Dove, Ben & Jerry’s, Lipton and Omo, Unilever’s plastic packaging footprint today is around 700,000 tonnes annually (including recent acquisitions).

New commitments

The consumer goods giant has confirmed that by 2025 it will:

• Reduce virgin plastic packaging by 50%, with one third coming from an absolute plastic reduction.

More than 100,000 tonnes will come from an absolute reduction as the business invests in multiple-use packs (reusable and/or refillable), ‘no plastic’ solutions (alternative packaging materials or naked products) and reduces the amount of plastic in existing packs (concentration). Replacing non-recycled plastic packaging with recycled plastics will account for the remaining reduction.

Unilever will measure the total tonnes of virgin plastic packaging used each year vs the total tonnes of virgin plastic packaging used in 2018. As a result of this commitment, Unilever is committing to have a virgin plastic packaging footprint of no more than 350,000 tonnes by 2025.

• Help collect and process more plastic packaging than it sells

This commitment will require the business to help collect and process around 600,000 tonnes of plastic annually by 2025. This is less than its current 700,000 tonnes plastic packaging footprint because it reflects the 100,000 tonnes absolute reduction it committed to above.

Unilever will deliver this commitment by: i) Investment and partnerships in waste collection and processing; ii) Purchasing and using recycled plastics in its packaging; and iii) Participating in extended producer responsibility schemes where Unilever directly pays for the collection of its packaging.

Unilever will measure the total tonnes of plastic packaging it has helped collect and process in a year vs how much plastic packaging it has used.

The company says it’s on track to achieve its existing commitments to ensure all of its plastic packaging is reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025, and to use at least 25% recycled plastic in its packaging, also by 2025.

Rethinking packaging and products

Alan Jope, Unilever CEO, said: “Plastic has its place, but that place is not in the environment. We can only eliminate plastic waste by acting fast and taking radical action at all points in the plastic cycle.

“Our starting point has to be design, reducing the amount of plastic we use, and then making sure that what we do use increasingly comes from recycled sources. We are also committed to ensuring all our plastic packaging is reusable, recyclable or compostable.

“This demands a fundamental rethink in our approach to our packaging and products. It requires us to introduce new and innovative packaging materials and scale up new business models, like re-use and re-fill formats, at an unprecedented speed and intensity.

https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/457/196487.html

Africa’s largest packaging company, Nampak, officially launched its Liquid Carton divisions’ new Technical Hub in Roodepoort, Johannesburg, on 12 December 2019. In one of his last official acts before leaving to head up Eskom, Nampak CEO André De Ruyter unveiled the new hub, cutting the ribbon during the facility’s opening ceremony.

The new plant complements Nampak’s existing liquid carton facilities, which include a sales office in Bryanston, Gauteng; a printing plant in Isithebe, KwaZulu-Natal; a research and development (R&D) facility in Cape Town, and sister carton producing plants in both Malawi and Zambia.

Following renewed popularity and rising demand for liquid cartons, Nampak says the new Technical Hub was custom built to maintain, and service the growing pool of liquid carton filling machines for the food and beverage industry, such as dairy, water and fruit juice.

The company states in a press release that the new facility “significantly increases Nampak’s renewed popularity and demand for carton filling machinery”, both in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.

https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/178/199449.html

Swiss food giant Nestlé plans to invest $2.1 billion to cut its use of virgin plastics in favour of food-grade recycled plastics, and accelerate the development of innovative sustainable packaging solutions.

Building on its 2018 commitment to make 100% of its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025, Nestlé says it will reduce its use of virgin plastics by one third in the same period whilst working with others to advance the circular economy and to clean up plastic waste from oceans, lakes and rivers.

Creating a market for food-grade recycled plastics

Food quality and safety are vital, and packaging plays a major role in assuring this. Most plastics are difficult to recycle for food packaging, leading to a limited supply of food-grade recycled plastics.

“To create a market, Nestlé is therefore committed to sourcing up to 2 million metric tonnes of food-grade recycled plastics and allocating more than CHF1.5 billion to pay a premium for these materials between now and 2025. Nestlé will seek operational efficiencies to keep this initiative earnings neutral,” says the company in a statement.

Packaging innovation, including new materials, refill systems and recycling solutions, is another challenge on the path towards a waste-free future. In addition to its in-house research through the Nestlé Institute of Packaging Sciences, the company will launch a CHF 250 million sustainable packaging venture fund to invest in start-up companies that focus on these areas.

These two initiatives come in addition to Nestlé’s efforts in research, sourcing and manufacturing to make its packaging recyclable or reusable and contribute to its goal to achieve zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. As part of the company’s packaging commitment and to increase transparency, Nestlé says it will continue to outline further initiatives and provide regular progress updates.

“We are pleased to see Nestlé commit a CHF 2 billion investment toward creating a circular economy for plastics, alongside a reduction of its use of virgin plastic in packaging by one third by 2025. By eliminating the plastics we don’t need, innovating in areas like reuse models and new materials, and circulating the plastics we do need – also in more challenging food-grade applications – we can create an economy where plastic never becomes waste. Achieving the commitments announced today will significantly contribute towards realising this vision,” said Andrew Morlet, CEO, Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

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The Shoprite Group is now using the 4,000 tonnes of plastic returned annually to its distribution centres to produce its 100% recycled and recyclable plastic shopping bags. This is in line with its goal to ensure that all of its plastic packaging is reusable and/or recyclable by 2025.

Since the beginning of November 2019, plastic from the retail group’s Centurion, Canelands and Cilmor distribution centres is being collected, converted into pellets and used to manufacture the plastic carrier bags for its supermarkets.

The Group plans for 100% of its plastic packaging to be reusable and/or recyclable by 2025, with an average of 30% recycled content to be used in all plastic packaging. Suppliers are already being provided with reusable, returnable packing crates to minimise packaging.

In 2013 the Group became the first South African retailer to produce a verified, 100% recycled shopping bag. Shoprite, Checkers and Usave supermarkets introduced the “planet” bag in late 2018. Made from 100% recycled plastic, the sturdy reusable bags entitle customers to claim 50c off their total spend each time they present the bag at the till.

New standardised recycling instructions, as published by WWF-SA earlier this year, have been introduced to the 650 million recyclable plastic bags made from 100% post-consumer recycled material that the Group sells per annum. These On Pack Recycling Labels will be included on all new products and as packaging designs of existing products are updated, to equip customers with the correct recycling information.

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