Of all the plastic ever produced, 79% of it is sitting in landfills, dumps, or the natural environment, while only a small portion of it has been recycled, (only 9%). The amount of plastic being produced continues to grow but some of the biggest producers fail to manage their waste effectively. Fortunately, governments are starting to take action and adopting policies, campaigns, incentives, and levies to increase recycling and reduce the use of disposable plastic. Demand for more sustainable products is also driving companies to change the way they manufacture their products and packaging.
Some companies are combating plastic pollution by focusing on utilizing more sustainable materials, while also removing plastic from the environment. One such company is United by Blue. Their hope is to one day fully eliminate the need for their beach clean-up missions. They prioritize sustainable materials and ethical manufacturing to lead the charge toward better business practices. They aim to facilitate incorporating sustainability into everyday life and generating less waste by creating products like reusable utensil kits. Their products are made in GOTS-certified factories from sustainably sourced materials and created to last, hoping to inspire conscious consumers that can consume less. They believe in building a community through their waterway cleanups, and the idea that if one business can make a difference, so can one person. Another company working to directly remove plastic from the environment is 4Ocean. With a number of full-time captains and crews, they recover harmful marine debris that’s already polluting the ocean and also work to stop plastic pollution from ending up in the ocean by educating people about this global plastic pollution crisis and empowering them to end their dependence on single-use plastic. For every 4ocean product purchased, their One Pound Promise ensures they will pull one pound of trash from the ocean, rivers, and coastlines. The profit from these products, in turn, helps fund their global ocean cleanup operation and supports the movement to end the world’s reliance on single-use plastic
Other companies are taking on the legislation being adopted to incorporate more recycled material in their products. One large contributor to plastic pollution and one taking on these incentives is Unilever. Recently Unilever North America invested $15 million in Closed Loop Partners’ Leadership fund to recycle an estimated 60,000 metric tons of US plastic packaging annually by 2025. This is equivalent to more than half of Unilever’s plastics footprint in North America and part of their commitment to collect and process more plastic packaging than they sell by 2025.
Several tech companies such as Dell, HP, and other companies like General Motors have partnered together under the NextWave Plastics consortium to commercialize supply chains that prevent plastic from reaching the ocean. For example, HP Inc. sourced 450 metric tons of trash (or the equivalent of 35 million plastic bottles) that were at risk of reaching the sea in Haiti to make their ink cartridges and parts of laptops and monitors. For the past decade, Subaru has committed to manufacturing all its products in zero-landfill plants with all of its waste being either recycled or reused.
While policies continue to come into play and large companies make these recycling commitments, supply chains will have to reach more and more companies. For these commitments to succeed, infrastructure has to be addressed as well because more plastic needs to be recycled to supply these companies. According to Closed Loop Partners, the supply of recycled plastics currently only meets 6% of the companies’ pledged goals. To address this issue, some companies like Loop Industries aim to expand their depolymerization process so that it is accessible in every state in the US and eventually install plants in Europe. The CEO, Daniel Solomita, hopes to make it a basic component of the countries’ infrastructure. However, they are still in the process of building the first plant in South Carolina and have plans to install the first plant in Europe by 2023. The South Carolina plant, which is a joint project with Indorama ventures, has already obtained commitments from PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, and Danone to buy more than half of the plant’s output once it starts up. In addition to increasing recycling, companies like Novoloop are also tackling the plastics that are more difficult to recycle. They transform packaging waste into high-performance materials used in shoes, cars, homes, etc. Their main focus is making recycled materials that perform like virgin materials while containing up to 50% recycled content and reducing up to 45% of carbon emissions. They accomplish this through their Accelerated Thermal Oxidative Decomposition (ATOD) technology. They obtain their feedstock from existing collection and sorting systems to obtain the post-consumer waste and use the ATOD technology to break it down into molecular building blocks.
As recycling technology continues to evolve and increase its efficiency and accessibility, making sure these supply chains are reliable, transparent, ethical, and sustainable will also become a key factor. MikaCycle is already addressing this and helping expand the network within the sustainable and reliable recycled plastic market to facilitate the sourcing of quality recycled plastic with a focus on transparency and reliability.
