World Environment Day 2018

In the last quarter of 2017, India became the world’s fastest-growing major economy, and the UN forecasts that India will overtake China as the most populous country in 2028.

With more and more people moving to India’s cities and the proportion of middle-class consumers growing, expectations for product safety, freshness, effectiveness and convenience are on the rise, too. That’s great for India’s people and, in turn, represents immense opportunity for consumer-goods companies – but needs to be accommodated in ways that are environmentally responsible.

Protecting the environment

India is tackling plastic pollution and food waste in ways that are familiar to Amcor and our stakeholders: greater innovation and collaboration, and three fundamental commitments – to developing recyclable and reusable packaging, creating innovative applications for post-consumer content, and improving the effectiveness of waste management.

Those are the elements of Amcor’s own global commitment to the environment, made alongside other leading global companies earlier this year. In January, we pledged to develop all our packaging to be recyclable or reusable by 2025, directly addressing a major environmental issue with capability, scale and reach. We also committed to significantly increasing our use of recycled materials and driving consistently more recycling of packaging around the world.

Recyclable and reusable packaging

In India, there is a vigorous market for small sachets of home- and personal-care products. The trend toward such single-use packages started in the early 1980s, with a local company selling hair-care sachets for 1 rupee (which is about 0.013 Euro cents). Thanks to their affordability, sachets now account for more than three-quarters of the total shampoo volume in the country.

But multilayer, laminated sachets are not easily recyclable.

In March 2016, India’s government published “The Plastic Waste Management Rules”. Among other requirements, the rules require the phase-out of multilayer plastic packaging that can’t be recycled or reused.

New formats will require technical breakthroughs, including new materials and manufacturing processes. Amcor colleagues around the globe are already collaborating with each other and outside experts to develop environmentally smarter alternative formats for the small-sachet market. Such packages will meet the rising needs of consumers, help our customers grow, and differentiate Amcor through our environmental leadership. One promising development is already being tested with Amcor customers in India.

*More than three-quarters of the total shampoo volume in India is sold in sachet packaging. New formats will require technical breakthroughs, and new materials and manufacturing processes. *

Increasing use of recycled content

India is also moving to the forefront of new thinking about how plastic packaging can be recycled or repurposed to keep it out of the environment.

Those same Plastic Waste Management Rules require plastic brand owners and packaging manufacturers to establish systems for reusing plastic packaging. Amcor is acting through a programme to use post-consumer recycled content in a major global customer’s shampoo and laundry containers.

Across India, a lot of other innovative work is being done to find new uses for collected plastic packaging. One example is an initiative to use plastic waste as a co-processing material for cement. Another is converting plastic waste into granules which are then made into other products, including injection-moulded items and even rope. There are also ongoing trials of pyrolysis, a process that decomposes plastics into oils, gas, and by-products that have commercial value.

Amcor has more than 1,100 colleagues in India, across seven sites.

Effective recycling infrastructure

In 2017, the Indian subcontinent endured a severe monsoon season. Many cities– including mega-city Mumbai – suffered record floods, which contributed to the deaths of more than 1,600 people. After the water subsided, authorities found city drainage systems and waterways clogged with debris, including plastic bags and packaging, which had prevented the deluge of water from more rapidly draining away.

The impact of poor waste management extends beyond national borders. Out of the 10 rivers that carry more than 90 percent of total plastic debris into the world’s seas, three flow through India – the Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra. The implication is that benefits from improved waste management in India will reach across the globe.

So that all Amcor packaging is recycled or reused, consumers must have access to efficient waste-management systems and recycling programs. We have pledged to help make that possible worldwide.

Last year, we commissioned the report “Toward Circularity of Post-consumer Flexible Packaging in Asia”, which provides an up-to-date picture of collection and recycling in Asia. The report examines what is being done today in India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, and proposes how companies, organizations and governments can raise levels of plastic recovery, recycling and reuse.

The research found that segregation-at-source is critical and should be supported by regulation, campaigns to change behaviours, and enforcement. It also said that recovery facilities are most effective when operations are subsidised by income generated from high-value recyclables, and when incentives exist for the retrieval and processing of flexible packaging waste. Most importantly, end uses for plastic packaging must be financially viable – that is, able to generate sufficient and consistent economic value to create markets for post-consumer packaging.

Preventing food waste, protecting the planet

Packaging is vital to assuring the safety and effectiveness of an extensive range of food, beverage, medical, pharmaceutical, household and personal-care products. It also significantly limits the enormous environmental implications from food and other product waste.

The Indian government has made reducing food waste a priority. The country is one of the world’s largest producers of food, the largest producer of milk, and the second largest of fruits and vegetables. However, the country currently processes only 10 percent of the food its people consume, resulting in significant food waste.

Packaging developed and made by Amcor contributes importantly to protecting products and extending their shelf lives, and reducing waste throughout the supply chain in India and around the world. However, what we do goes far beyond that.

Packaging helps protect the planet by not only assuring food products reach their destination and are consumed freshly and nutritiously, more and more it is being done with the right amounts of the most appropriate materials, and by being recyclable or reusable.

As populations in India and globally continue to expand, achieving these goals is increasingly urgent. Amcor people have the capability, creativity and commitment to enable consumers and customers to grow and prosper, while also protecting the environment.

Check out how our packaging is better for products, people and the planet.
Find out more: www.amcor.com/sustainability