“U.S. Plastics Pact Extends Deadlines: What This Means for the Future of Plastic Reduction”
The U.S. Plastics Pact, consisting of 80 companies such as Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and Danone, has announced a significant shift in their goals to reduce plastic usage. Originally aiming to drastically reduce their use of plastic by 2025, the pact has now extended the deadline to 2030. This delay comes as a reflection of the challenges faced by corporations in meeting ambitious climate goals set less than a decade ago, amidst a surge in plastic production globally.
According to data from Statista, plastic production reached 400.3 million metric tons in 2022, marking a 1.6 percent increase from the previous year. The pact’s targets for plastic packaging, originally set for 2025, include eliminating problematic materials, ensuring reusability, recyclability, or compostability of all packaging, achieving a 50 percent plastic recycling rate, and integrating recycled or responsibly sourced bio-based materials into 30 percent of all packaging.
Emily Tipaldo, the executive director of the U.S. Plastics Pact, acknowledged the ambitious nature of the initial targets, stating that they served as a marker for the industry. However, not all members of the pact share an optimistic view. Lauren Click, the executive director of Let’s Go Compost, expressed frustration over the lack of infrastructure support for compostable packaging.
The absence of federal policies mandating extended producer responsibility in the U.S. has led the pact members to make independent commitments. The U.S. Plastics Pact’s Roadmap 2.0 now serves as a national strategy for the plastics packaging value chain, aiming to drive a circular economy for plastics packaging.
The pact’s new targets for 2030 include eliminating problematic materials, ensuring all plastic packaging is reusable, recyclable, or compostable, recycling half of all plastic packaging, incorporating 30 percent recycled or bio-based content, and scaling viable reuse systems. The shift in targets reflects the challenges faced by companies in meeting the original 2025 goals.
Major companies like Coca-Cola and Keurig Dr Pepper have made progress towards their sustainability goals, with Coca-Cola aiming to make half of its packaging from recycled material by 2030. However, notable absences from the pact include PepsiCo and Altria, two of the largest plastic polluters globally.
The U.S. Plastics Pact hopes that the revised deadlines and targets will encourage more companies to join the initiative and work towards a more sustainable future beyond 2025.