Amcor, in partnership with thirty-five leading companies in the consumer goods industry, has announced measures to significantly reduce plastic waste.
Amcor and its partners in this coalition will be enforcing two new design rules which are aimed at delivering packaging that is easier and more cost-effective to recycle.
In a statement from Amcor, the first design rule is expected to improve the economic viability of PET bottle recycling by removing colouring pigments and labelling that impact recycling rates. The second design rule will remove materials that are problematic for recyclers from all forms of plastic packaging
The collective of companies, which have a turnover of 1 trillion euros, anticipate that through implementing these rules less waste is leaked into the environment, with recycling becoming cheaper, more efficient and can scale faster.
Peter Konieczny, Amcor’s Chief Commercial Officer believes the company is already applying these rules to packaging.
“Amcor is a world-leading, packaging company. We are already applying these rules to make our packaging easier to recycle, particularly in our PET bottles and rigid packages. Our business has achieved consistent success in using our innovation capabilities to eliminate materials that hamper recycling and we continue to use more recycled content in our packaging. We are keen to use our expertise alongside CGF and the Plastic Waste Coalition of Action to help consumers make a positive contribution to protecting the environment,” he said.
President and CEO of the Association of Plastics Recyclers Steve Alexander is pleased the design rules comply with the APR Design for Plastics Recyclability for PET Recyclability.
“These guidelines help to create industry standards to provide sustainability solutions for plastic packaging, and will serve to enhance the value of PET bottle recycling. Recycling serves as the base for packaging to be part of the circular economy, and these guidelines help to close the loop when it comes to our waste management system,” he added.
According to the statement, ‘Amcor is also endorsing the CGF’s recent position paper on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) which calls on governments to work with industry to ensure that EPR schemes meet a set of guiding principles for fairness, effectiveness and sustainability’.
“Where governments are looking to legislate in order to facilitate better waste management and recycling infrastructure, Amcor is ready to work with them to ensure that policy solutions are designed to achieve real impact and to drive down waste, said David Clark, Amcor’s Vice President of Sustainability.
