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By Jeff Young
Environment and Sustainability Editor
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New reports tracking the efforts to reduce plastic waste show some companies are making slow but steady progress to cut harmful plastics and increase reuse and recycling, but the world is still "off track" to eliminate plastic pollution.
The pair of reports show how much work remains for companies to meet their ambitious pledges to cut the plastic waste that is clogging landfills, polluting waterways and oceans, and threatening human health.
For example, the U.S. Plastics Pact reported Tuesday that its 135 members nudged upward the amount of post-consumer recycled plastic content they used in 2023 from 9 to 11 percent. That's still far from the members' goal to use 30 percent post-recycled content by 2025.
Read More on Sustainability
"We need to be aspirational and need to push what some thought was impossible to become possible," U.S. Plastics Pact CEO Jonathan Quinn told Newsweek. "It is about progress over perfection."
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A report released last month by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation also found that despite progress among signatories to its Global Commitment on plastic waste, many were likely to fall short of goals. A third have met goals to reduce the use of virgin plastic, the report stated, but many signatories are "likely to miss key 2025 targets."
The Plastics Pact report called for greater collaboration among plastics makers and users and "unified federal action" on plastic waste. The MacArthur Foundation authors said global policy is required.
However, talks hosted by the United Nations on a global plastics treaty ended earlier this month with no agreement. In the U.S., promising legislation in Congress to address plastic waste did not win passage.
With both international and federal action on plastics on hold, some industry members say that in the near term, it will be up to state and corporate leaders to advance the policies and practices that can best address plastic waste.
"It ends up leaving things back in the hands of states," sustainable packaging executive Saloni Doshi told Newsweek. Doshi is CEO and chief sustainability officer at EcoEnclose, a Colorado-based company that provides sustainable packaging for e-commerce. She said that with companies facing greater cost concerns and a new Congress likely to take a skeptical view of environmental matters, action will shift from Capitol Hill to statehouses.
"I think we begin to refocus our efforts on states and see how far we can push them to achieve the results we need," she said.
Some Progress on Plastics
The Global Commitment includes businesses that represent 20 percent of plastic packaging produced around the world and more than 50 governments, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
That global reach and scale means the progress so far has had substantial impact. Since 2018, the report authors estimated, signatories have avoided the use of 9.6 million tons of virgin plastic, enough to make a trillion single-use plastic bags.
And because most plastics are made from fossil fuels, the reduction in plastic has also helped limit greenhouse gas emissions by 3.4 million tons. That's equivalent to the annual emissions from a city of 750,000 people.
"With a large part of the plastic packaging industry not yet taking action, and signatories likely to miss key 2025 targets, the world is off track to eliminate plastic waste and pollution," the MacArthur Foundation report said.
The Foundation also supports the U.S. Plastics Pact, which includes two dozen major retailers. The Pact reported some bright spots of progress against plastic waste.
Companies' use of sustainable packaging increased to 50 percent last year, the Pact's report said, a category that includes reusable, compostable and recyclable materials.
Participating companies have also sharply reduced the types of plastic products and chemical ingredients on the Pact's list of "problematic and unnecessary materials," and 22 percent of the members do not sell or use any of the items.
The list includes some single-use plastics such as straws and stirrers and potentially harmful materials such as PFAS, the so-called forever chemicals which persist in the environment and are linked to a range of health problems.
"Our list really drives innovation and collaboration," Quinn said. He said some companies are adopting plastic resins that are more easily recycled and "stepping away from some materials because they're not able to be recycled."
Quinn was among the panel participants in a Newsweek Horizons event on December 4. "The Future of Plastics" explored plastic waste solutions and the result of international talks that had just concluded on December 1 in Busan, South Korea, without an agreement for a global treaty.
Panelists expressed a mix of disappointment in the outcome and hope that continued U.N. talks will yield a strong treaty to limit the overall production of plastic and better support waste management around the world. But the next round of talks is still unscheduled and the outcome is uncertain.
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A Focus on Statehouses
At EcoEnclose, Saloni Doshi and her colleagues work toward what she calls "true packaging circularity."
The material that arrives wrapped around items ordered online should be made from other packaging material and then used again. The company also seeks out replacement materials made from seaweed or agricultural waste rather than petrochemical plastics.
Work like that would have benefitted from two bills introduced in Congress that supported plastic waste collection and recycling. Despite gaining significant support, both bills languished, and the final days of this congressional session are ticking down. Doshi said such legislation would face headwinds if introduced in the new Congress where Republicans will control both the Senate and House and are likely to have a skeptical view of environmental measures.
State action has emerged as a major influence, she said, especially in California, where the most populous state has an outsized impact on commerce across the country.
"California continues to make progress, and there's really no slowdown in that state in terms of continuing to look for ways to improve the circular economy," she said.
California's "Truth in Recycling" law, Senate Bill 343, aims to ensure that recycling labels accurately reflect the recyclability of products and their packaging, and key elements of the law take effect in 2025.
California and a handful of other states are also implementing Extended Producer Responsibility systems in which major plastic producers and users help to pay for waste collection, sorting and recycling.
Even with a global treaty in limbo and domestic politics in flux, Doshi said the work to rein in plastic waste will continue: "We are going to make progress in the next four years, regardless."
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