Multinational corporations are failing to reduce their use of plastics fast enough, according to a report released today, despite having pledged to use only reusable, recyclable, or compostable packaging by 2025.
The annual progress report, compiled by the U.N. Environment Programme and the Ellen Macarthur Foundation, a nonprofit focused on creating sustainable business models, warns this packaging target “will almost certainly be missed.” Signatories of the Global Commitment pact, which includes companies like Nestlé and Mars, Inc., along with governments and other organizations, account for about 20% of the world’s plastic packaging market. Plastic waste has become an increasingly significant environmental concern in recent years due to effects on ecosystems and potential repercussions for human health. Researchers found plastic particles in human blood for the first time earlier this year.
But the companies in the pact have made only slight progress toward the goal, increasing the percentage of their packaging materials that won’t have to be thrown in landfills from 63.2% to 65.4% between 2019, when the first Global Commitment report was released, and 2021.
At the same time, the use of so-called “virgin” plastics—derived from new oil and natural gas rather than from recycled materials in a process that releases large quantities of greenhouse gas—is on the rise. This past year has seen a global leap in virgin plastic use, erasing a reduction of about 2.5% from the previous two years. Increases in the amount of recycled packaging the companies used were undone by a spike in their overall plastic consumption, which caused overall virgin plastic use to rise.
Read more: U.S. Plastic Recycling Rates Are Even Worse Than We Thought
This comes after last year’s report framed progress around virgin…
Source : time
