Amcor joins WWF-led ReSource: Plastic environmental consortium

10 Jun 2020 --- Amcor has joined the World Wildlife Fund-led (WWF) activation hub, ReSource: Plastic, a global consortium of companies and organizations collaborating to keep waste out of the environment. Launched last year, ReSource aims to help accelerate large-scale plastic commitments by organizations. By 2030, Resource has a target to prevent at least 50 million metric tons of plastic waste from entering nature. ReSource welcomed Amcor to the organization alongside Colgate-Palmolive and Kimberly-Clark.

“Amcor is leading the way on packaging innovation, but new products and technologies alone won’t be enough to meet our sustainability ambitions and to solve the global waste issue. Keeping waste out of the environment will require not only the right package design but also efficient collection and waste management along with active consumer participation,” comments Ron Delia, Amcor CEO.

David Clark, Vice President Sustainability at Amcor echoed this sentiment in a recent interview with PackagingInsights. Clark explained how packaging recycling is a “chicken and egg” situation in which recyclable packaging and recycling infrastructure must coincide to realize greater environmental sustainability. The comments came after the coronavirus pandemic spiked global demand for grocery shopping and home delivery, intensifying packaging waste management issues.

“When WWF set its global vision of no plastic in nature by 2030, we knew we couldn’t achieve this feat alone. We’re thrilled to welcome Amcor into ReSource: Plastic and look forward to tackling the plastic pollution problem, together,” says Erin Simon, Head of Plastic and Business at WWF.Launched last year, ReSource aims to help accelerate large-scale company plastic commitments.

ReSource recently launched its inaugural report “Transparent 2020,” which identifies a common measurement baseline for principal members and contains a detailed analysis of the challenges and potential solutions.

PET power
Amcor is dedicating “unprecedented resources” to solving the issue of more environmentally sustainable design and bringing innovative products to market. For example, the plastics packaging giant teamed up with British multi-award-winning start-up Garçon Wines to bring its 100 percent recycled and recyclable letterbox friendly PET wine bottle to the US market. Amcor also launched the first 100 percent post-consumer recycled resin PET containers in the multivitamin segment in February.

Last year, Amcor embarked on a “Choose Plastic” marketing campaign to educate consumers, customers and other stakeholders on the benefits of PET packaging. The global packaging giant points to key environmental benefits, including the lightweight and infinitely recyclable nature of the material, while also spotlighting the shatterproof, transparent, reclosable and resealable qualities of PET bottles.

In August 2019, Amcor created the first PET bottles for pasteurized beer in Brazil for New Age’s Salzburg craft beer brand. More recently, the supplier designed a family of stock PET bottles that enable co-packers to meet the demanding requirements for e-commerce-ready packaging.

Strategic collaborations
Additionally, Amcor collaborates with industry partners, governments and non-governmental organizations to improve the collection, recycling and recovery of plastic packaging. The company has global partnerships with Ocean Conservancy and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy initiative, where experts led the development of a global design-for-recyclability standard for high-barrier flexible packaging.

In this space, Amcor launched the AmLite Ultra Recyclable high-barrier laminate pack in April last year. It is the first product made from the supplier’s landmark recyclable polyolefin film. The high-barrier laminate can package a range of food, home, personal care and pharmaceutical products and be recycled in existing polyolefin recycling streams.

Amcor has reported progress towards its commitment to developing all its packaging to be recyclable or reusable by 2025, significantly increase the use of recycled materials and drive greater recycling of packaging around the world.

Edited by Joshua Poole