Twelve member companies of The Consumer Goods Forum’s (CGF) Coalition of Action on Plastic Waste have today published a letter addressed to suppliers, regulators and investors expressing their demand to procure chemically recycled material produced in line with their environmental safeguards. A wider survey of Coalition member companies indicates demand of 800,000 tons of chemically recycled material per year by 2030, in addition to their needs for mechanically recycled materials.
In April 2022, members of the Coalition published a Vision and Principles Paper, entitled “Chemical Recycling in a Circular Economy for Plastics” which encourages the development of new plastics recycling technologies that meet six key principles for credible, safe and environmentally sound development. At the same time, members of the Coalition published an independent Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study, that demonstrates that system-level emissions would be approximately 40% lower in certain geographies and under certain conditions at-scale chemical recycling was available to process hard-to-recycle plastics, rather than sending these plastics to waste-to-energy incinerators. The Coalition recognises that although chemical recycling technology is not a silver bullet, it will be an important technology which can serve a vital purpose for the recycling of unavoidable plastic waste which cannot be otherwise recycled mechanically.
The Coalition conducted a survey of member companies which revealed that there is demand for at least 800,000 tons of chemically recycled materials per year 2030. By expressing their interest in procuring these materials, companies are sending a strong signal to regulators and investors of the need for scale in plastics chemical recycling infrastructure while meeting the necessary environmental safeguards laid out in the Coalition's Vision and Principles paper. Demand for chemically recycled material does not reduce the need to continue the scale-up of mechanical recycling infrastructure. It is primarily focused on demand which cannot be met at scale by mechanically recycled materials today (e.g., food-contact flexible packaging applications).
The Coalition members signing this letter include: Amcor, Barilla, Colgate-Palmolive, Danone, Ferrero, Haleon, Henkel, Mars, Incorporated, McCain Foods, Mondelēz International, PepsiCo, Unilever.