The New Plastics Economy - Catalysing Action (2018)
FMCG
Description
Think excessive plastic waste won't affect you? Think again.
This new report shows that we are firmly at the action stage when dealing with plastic waste. The paper solidifies the five building blocks - dialogue, harmonisation, innovation, analysis and outreach.
Endorsed and supported by major companies such as Unilever, Amcor, Coca-Cola, L'Oreal, Pepsico, Procter & Gamble will this approach solve the plastic problem?
- Without fundamental redesign and innovation, about 30% of plastic packaging will never be reused or recycled
- For at least 20% of plastic packaging, reuse provides an economically attractive opportunity
- With concerted efforts on design and after-use systems, recycling would be economically attractive for the remaining 50% of plastic packaging
The global momentum for a plastic rethink is greater than ever.
Research notes
The World Economic Forum, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and McKinsey & Company joined
forces in 2014 to create Project Mainstream, a cross-industry, CEO-led global initiative to help
scale the circular economy by unravelling systemic stalemates. Taking a global, cross-sectoral
look at material flows, the project quickly identified plastics as one of the value chains most
representative of the current linear model, bringing undisputed functionality to a variety of
applications, but also entailing significant economic losses and severe negative externalities.
The resulting report, The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the future of plastics, launched
at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2016 in Davos-Klosters, analysed these global
flows for the first time and set out a vision for a new and effective plastics packaging system,
guided by circular economy principles, and fit for the long term. This compelling vision
provided the impetus for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to set up an ambitious three-year
initiative, the New Plastics Economy, to act on the report’s insights and turn the vision into
reality.