Responsible Plastic Consumption – Reduce, Recycle, Reuse

The fact that plastics have actively contributed to the growth of businesses and lifestyle convenience is indisputable. Understanding packaging without plastics is quite hard. Their ubiquity and indispensability are such that producing alternative materials has been challenging, with more sustainable options like biodegradable plastics taking decades to see the light of the day.

It is estimated that we may have produced 8.3 billion tons of plastic since the material came into commercial use in the 1950s and we produce 300 million tons of plastic annually to meet our consumption requirements.

Globally, about 78 million tons of plastic packaging waste is produced annually, of which ~25 million tons of plastic waste spill into the oceans, ~32 million tons get into landfills. Just 2% of the total waste generated contributes to circularity after process losses, with 98% of plastics produced made from virgin feedstock – crude oil [1]. The plastics industry uses about 350 million tons of the 4500 million tons of crude oil produced. According to a Stanford study, the carbon-intense production process of crude oil releases 15 grams of CO2 per Megajoule of oil produced, which makes the plastics industry account for a gigaton of CO2 emissions a day, before plastics are made.

These facts should alarm us given the impact they have on ocean life, the environment and climate change.

A research study has concluded that plastics, when exposed to sunlight, release greenhouse gases like methane and ethylene, and plastics exposed to sunlight are 80 times more potent in GHG pollution than their ocean counterparts.

Plastic for packaging accounts for ~60% of the total plastics produced and much of the plastics used in food and beverage packaging are multilayered packaging material or single-use plastics that rank low in recyclability and inevitably end up in landfills.

Plastic neutrality is now an organisational objective for several players in the FMCG and the food & beverage industries, with achieving plastic neutrality becoming a social responsibility given the impact waste could have on the environment and climate.

the LEGO Group, for instance, will eliminate the use of virgin plastic and Unilever aims to halve the use of virgin plastic by 2030. Reliance Industries Limited recycles 2 billion PET bottles per annum. It aims to increase this figure to 5 billion to produce its greenest fabric, GreenGold.

Innovation and digitalisation have found their way across the value chain with companies like rePurpose Global offering plastic neutrality-as-a-service, while Lucro provides brand-specific waste management and upcycling services.

Extended Producer Responsibilities (EPR) recently introduced in high-consumption countries like India and China obligate companies to employ responsible use, collection, and recycling of plastic introduced into the economy. This has accelerated investments in research and development of low-cost recycling technologies to loop more of the waste into feedstock.

Pyrolysis, enzymatic recycling, and advanced technologies in the recycling process like advanced scanning and sorting, and automation of the recycling processes, are some avenues witnessing increased investments.

End-to-end traceability solutions, as provided by companies like Circulor and Recity, improve accountability.

Consumer behaviour is being changed in several developing countries, encouraging source segregation, and educating consumers about the segregation of recyclable plastics to avoid them being sent to landfills.

While there has been considerable improvement in their awareness levels, achieving required outcomes by transitioning into a circular plastic economy from the linear use and throw model requires governments’ policy support and subsidies.

Curbing plastic pollution will become a legally binding global agreement by 2024, and what is now voluntary will become mandatory for nations, encouraging responsible consumption of plastics. Regardless, the plastic waste management space is expected to offer fertile ground for innovation and investments encouraging companies with the right solutions, driving responsible consumer behaviour at the same time.

Click to read about more growth opportunities in plastic waste management in Taiwan, South Korea, India

[1] Ellen McArthur Foundation