Plastics

• [New] Clorox seeks to prevent plastic waste and pollution in packaging, pledging to halve its use of virgin plastic and fiber by 2030 while doubling PCR recycled plastic.
• [New] The plastic waste generated worldwide is expected to triple to 155-265 million metric tonnes per year by 2060.
• [New] Indonesia's government last year launched a plan to cut ocean plastic waste by 70% by 2025, and to end plastic pollution altogether by 2040.
• [New] Without decreases in plastic production and increases in recycling, by 2040 plastic pollution entering the ocean will triple from 11 to 29 million metric tons each year.
• By 2025, we will make an absolute reduction of 100,000 tons in plastic use and promote the use of recyclable plastic, so that we can halve the amount of virgin plastic we use in packaging and help collect and process more plastic packaging than we sell.
• By 2025, across sub-Saharan Africa, Dow aims to recover at least 5,000 metric tons of plastic waste annually; have flexible packaging included in the recyclable waste stream, and take valuable waste plastic back and recycle it to use in new applications.
• New Zealand is a voluntary signatory to the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment, which includes commitments by businesses and government to increase reusable packaging by 2025.
• By 2050, with current plans, the quantity of worn-out, non-recyclable solar panels will double the tonnage of all today's global plastic waste, along with over 3 million tons per year of unrecyclable plastics from worn-out wind turbine blades.
• China will need refining capacity controls and bans on plastics to reach peak crude oil consumption of 720 million tonnes by 2025 if it is to cap its total carbon emissions before 2030.
• Canada has passed a similar law that will ban many plastic items by the end of 2021.
• Since 2018, M&S Food claims to have removed over 2,000 tonnes of plastic and has stopped using black plastic as part of its target to make 100% of its packaging recyclable by 2022.
• In July, Aldi announced new commitments to halve the volume of plastic packaging it uses by 2025.
• Low-cost carrier Norwegian Air Shuttle it planned to slash CO2 emissions by 45% by 2030 and reduce its use of plastics as part of a new environmental strategy.
• The oil and gas industry plans to spend US$ 400 billion on infrastructure to make more new plastic, while spending less than US$ 2 billion to reduce plastic waste.
• The government of Indonesia set an ambitious target to reduce marine plastic waste by 70% by 2025.
• The oil and gas industry plans to spend around $400 billion over the next five years on plants to make raw materials for virgin plastic.
• A number of national governments have approved bans on certain types of single-use plastics, for example Costa Rica's ban on the import, marketing, and distribution of polystyrene containers, as part of a national strategy to drastically reduce the use of disposable plastics by 2021.
• Investment: to achieve a recycling rate of 25% of plastic packaging, Wood Mackenzie calculates that USD 50 billion of investment will be required by 2040 to deliver enough chemical recycling capacities.
• Canada announced its commitment to ban a list of non-reusable plastic products by 2022.
• The waste export ban progressively prohibits the export of certain types of waste, meaning that Australia must recycle an additional 645,000 tonnes of waste plastic, paper, glass and tyres onshore by 2024.
• On the sovereign level, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced a plan to ban some types of single-use plastics by 2021.
• The first-ever blue loan to a global plastic resin manufacturer will lead to the recycling of 50 billion PET bottles globally a year by 2025 including four countries in Asia and one in Latin America, diverting plastic waste from landfills and oceans.

Last updated: 17 January 2021