Colombia launches national plastics pact targeting 50% recycling rate

27 Feb 2023 --- Colombia has launched a plastics pact to tackle the environmental impacts of packaging waste and support international work developing a circular economy for plastics. The Colombia Plastics Pact was developed and launched through a partnership between The Business Commitment to Recycling (CEMPRE) and The Waste and Research Action Programme (WRAP) with the support of UK Research and Innovation.

Colombia will aim to eliminate problematic and unnecessary plastic and transform all plastic packaging to reusable, recyclable or compostable formats. The government will also work to increase the country’s plastic recycling rate to 50% and the average recycled content of plastic packaging to 30%. 

David Rogers, WRAP’s international director tells PackagingInsights that he is “extremely optimistic” about the situation in Colombia and the country’s newly established plastics pact. 

“Tackling plastic pollution requires a collaborative joint approach between businesses, policymakers and citizens and the Pact will provide the mechanism for driving real, long-term change. The Colombian Plastics Pact joins a growing network of pacts around the world. This network allows us to share ideas and solutions and increase the speed of change,” stresses Rogers.

National circular discrepancies 
Colombia is the second Latin American country to launch a plastics pact after Chile launched Circula El Plástico in April 2019.

Colombia currently places more than 700,500 metric tons of plastic containers and packaging into the domestic market each year, but only 3% is reincorporated back into packaging, according to WRAP. 

The WRAP-CEMPRE team with David Rogers, WRAP’s international director, in the center (Image credit: WRAP).The Colombia Plastics Pact is said to address this discrepancy and drive forward the move to a more circular economy for plastic by working across the packaging value chain and bringing together key players, including packaging companies, producers, traders, processors, academia, trade associations, NGOs and the government in a shared vision.

“The circular economy is the model that recognizes the environmental and social value as fundamental axes of the sustainable development of countries and their territories,” says Laura Reyes, executive director of CEMPRE.

“There are a number of benefits in promoting the circular economy to value chains, from improving the design of products and promoting different forms of consumption to encouraging labor and business formality and valuing the real cost of the products we consume.”

WRAP supports CEMPRE
WRAP has initiated and is supporting many public-private partnerships around the world. “We always work with a local partner who has the skills, contacts and knowledge of the country so that we can develop a commitment which reflects local realities and priorities while retaining the core facets which make WRAP’s model effective,” says Rogers. 

“Because the commitments are based around common principles and objectives, we can connect the leaders and signatories of all our commitments to each other, wherever they are in the world, to share challenges, innovations and ideas.”

WRAP provides technical, operational and strategic support to all our local partners to help them build a successful and impactful commitment, asserts Rogers. 

Economic viability effects
There are many challenges for reducing plastic pollution and increasing recycling quotas in Colombia, ranging from established behaviors and business models to limitations of infrastructure and policy. 

“However, by bringing all the key actors of the value chain together with technical and policy experts and government representatives, we have the best chance of identifying and overcoming those challenges,” highlights Rogers. 

“We have an excellent local partner in CEMPRE and a fantastic coalition of supporters and members of the Colombian Plastics Pact.”By adopting a circular economy for plastic we keep plastic away from the places we need to protect, stresses CEMPRE’s executive director Laura Reyes.

On a recent visit to the country, WRAP’s team saw how changes to product design as a result of design guidance affect the economic viability of local recyclers, including the 60,000 informal waste pickers operating in the country, asserts Rogers. 

Recruiting partners on-site
By adopting a circular economy for plastic we keep plastic in production chains and away from the places we need to protect, such as the oceans as well as reducing social gaps in those regions and encouraging private sector investment in new technologies, adds Reyes. 

The Pact has recruited major businesses operating in Colombia, including Nestlé, Carvajal, Coca-Cola, Plastisol, Jerónimo Martins, Grupo Plastilene, Xiclo and Resiter and support from Acoplásticos, The Consumer Goods Forum, the World Wide Fund for Nature and the University of Los Andes, Chile. 

Businesses will work toward a series of science-based targets to reduce the impact that plastic has in the country and develop a more circular approach to the commercial use of plastic.

WRAP highlights that the Colombia Plastics Pact will strengthen the growing network of international Plastic Pacts at a key moment when plastics initiatives – delivered locally and supported by WRAP, the World Economic Forum and Ellen MacArthur Foundation, become more closely aligned through a global knowledge-sharing network. 

The NGO claims Colombia will benefit from the wealth of experience from initiatives in countries including France, the UK, the Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, the US, Canada, Chile, South Africa, India, Kenya and regions including the EU and Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.

By Natalie Schwertheim