The Chicken and The Egg of Recycling

On the one hand, the pandemic has reminded us of the value and importance of essential consumer goods. In many countries, people have had to stop eating out and so they are replacing that with increased grocery shopping, ecommerce activity and home delivery. Many are giving more thought to the importance of shelf-life and hygiene when it comes to everything from food for our families to the medicines we need.

On the other hand, there may be concern that those changes in consumption could lead to more waste and – therefore – more waste leakage. While there already appears to be some indicators of environmental benefits from lower levels of human activity during the pandemic, we don’t need to choose between safe packaging and a healthy environment. It is possible to have both.

Amcor’s 1,000 R&D specialists are continuing their working to keep us and our customers at the leading edge of more sustainable packaging. As well as more recyclable and reusable packaging, we are increasingly incorporating bio-based and responsibly source materials and continuing to innovate to drive down the carbon footprint of products with lighter weight packaging.

We know that no one stakeholder in the consumer goods value chain can solve the waste challenge alone. People need and want packaging that can be recycled and reused, then we need systems and infrastructure to collect and recycle post-consumer packaging, and consumers need to be active in the recycling system.

Amcor’s work to better protect the environment in partnership with organizations like Materials Recovery for the Future (MRFF), CEFLEX (a collaborative initiative of a European consortium of companies representing the entire value chain of flexible packaging) and The Recycling Partnership also continues. We are hosting and participating in remote working sessions with global experts and our progress and enthusiasm for what our collaboration can achieve has not reduced.

We remain committed to working across the value chain to create a packaging system that works. One way of understanding the systemic approach that we need is the age-old question – ‘what came first, the chicken or the egg?’. The right answer to that, of course, is neither. One needs the other – and vice versa – for the other to exist.

At Amcor we are succeeding in getting the ‘egg’ sorted: our products are increasingly ready to be reused and recycled and we are investing time and money in making sure the ease and efficiency with which waste can turned into useful products is increased.

The ‘chicken’ is the infrastructure and incentives to realise the full potential of recycling. That means more and better collection systems and recycling infrastructure and a real focus on positive consumer behaviours – so that the recyclable materials that we are producing end up being recycled.

So, which should come first – developing packaging to be recyclable, or developing the system to collect and recycling more packaging? We can’t wait for one before starting on the other. We need to innovate both the “chicken” and the “egg” so we get both at the same time. And the good news is we know what needs to be done.

In Japan, Germany, British Columbia, and other places around the world, evidence shows that we can drive down leakage by getting the infrastructure and incentives on recycling properly aligned with the innovations in packaging. Learning from what works today is crucial to driving leakage down and recycling up, globally.

Through our partnerships Amcor is committed to sharing best-practice so that our innovative products enter a marketplace that is equipped and ready to collect and recycle them.

The current crisis has brought into focus the vital role that packaging plays in society; whether protecting goods in the supply chain and reducing food waste, or enabling hygiene and sterility in the food, pharmaceutical and medical sectors.

Even as COVID-19 radically changes how we live, Amcor’s commitment to more responsible packaging remains front-and-center of our strategy and work with customers, suppliers and other partners.

In normal times, Amcor packaging makes sure food, beverages, medicines and other consumer products safe and long-lasting, protected through the supply chain and easily dispensed and stored. In normal times, our global team is innovating to better protect products and to develop even more of our packaging to be reused or recycled at the end of its use.

Though we are far from normal times, our focus has not wavered from these crucial actions. And this means our customers and their consumers continue to benefit from our packaging as the environment increasingly benefits too.