From linear to circular: Sustainable change can only come through collaboration

Now we have shared our successful strategies and collaborated on a Roadmap to help others in the industry set and meet their own goals to keep plastic waste out of the environment. The U.S. Plastics Pact Roadmap is a collaboration with almost 100 other packaging companies that aligns very closely with our key 2025 sustainability goals.

The U.S. Plastics Pact, led by the Recycling Partnership and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as part of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's global Plastics Pact network, is the first North American pact of its kind and its Roadmap is an effort to collaborate with other organizations to build a circular economy.

This project demonstrates how we can leverage the things that are in our power to change - together as an industry - to make sure that we are not only changing our own practices but changing the industry as a whole. We understand the need for urgency, and for holding each other accountable for meeting the goals we say we will meet. That's why we are proud to help launch the Roadmap and to be a part of other initiatives that are tackling the issue of plastic waste head on.

The Roadmap sets forth four main goals:

1. Define a list of packaging to be designated as problematic or unnecessary by 2021 and take measures to eliminate them by 2025.
2. 100% of plastic packaging will be reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025.
3. By 2025, undertake ambitious actions to effectively recycle or compost 50% of plastic packaging.
4. By 2025, the average recycled content or responsibly sourced bio-based content in plastic packaging will be 30%.

The Plastics Pact is just one of our collaborations. To continue our commitments, Amcor has also entered into a partnership with the Alliance to End Plastic Waste in projects designed to solve the problem of waste leakage through the implementation of Alliance's four strategic pillars - waste management and recycling infrastructure, innovation, education and engagement and cleaning up.

In addition, as a member of the World Wildlife Fund-led activation hub, ReSource: Plastic, Amcor is helping find innovative ways to solve the global waste issue as well as working on the ground with Ocean Conservancy and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's New Plastics Economy initiative to clean up plastic pollution.

Amcor wants to encourage others in the packaging industry to join pacts like the Plastics Pact and help, through a collaborative and multifaceted approach, change our industry. Building a circular economy for plastics will take a huge shift in our culture worldwide and Amcor recognizes that no singular company can do it alone - it will take all of us pushing together to turn the linear packaging stream and close it into a recycling loop.