Indorama, Borealis sign pledge to reduce plastic waste, increase transparency

Morgan Condon

14-Mar-2019

LONDON (ICIS)–Borealis and Indorama have signed a commitment to reduce global plastic waste and apply more transparency to their plastics production figures, a report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation said on Thursday.

The Foundation, in collaboration with UN Environment, has collated information in a bid to improve transparency of what is being done to tackle plastic waste and pollution.

Indorama Ventures and Borealis have revealed their 2025 targets to increase the use of post-consumer recycled plastic, joining more than 150 businesses who also signed the pledge.

By signing the commitment, the companies have agreed not only to endorse the global commitment and publicise 2025 targets, but must report publicly report on progress towards these targets on an annual basis.

Thailand-headquartered Indorama confirmed that its produces more than 6m tonnes/year of polyethylene terephthalate (PET). While it presently processes more than 100,000 tonnes/year of recycled PET (R-PET), it aims to increase this to 750,000 tonnes/year by 2025.

Austria-headquartered Borealis did not disclose how much plastic its produces, but stated that it has already started integrating recycling and will try to increase the share of recycled plastics in its total plastic volumes sold.

The study lays out data from major companies, governments and other organisations as part of the group’s New Plastics Economy initiative.

“The targets and action plans set out in this report are a significant step forward compared with the pace of change of past decades,” said the New Plastics Economy lead Sander Defruyt.

“However, they are still far from truly matching the scale of the problem, particularly when it comes to the elimination of unnecessary items and innovation towards reuse models.”

Defruyt added that companies’ targets on plastics must continue to rise to make “real strides” in addressing global plastic pollution by 2025, adding that it was crucial for them to move from “commitment to action” during this period.

“Major investments, innovations, and transformation programmes need to start now,” he said.

Some major consumer groups such as the Coca-Cola Company, Unilever and SC Johnson publicly disclose how much plastic packaging they are producing on an annual basis, but the majority of businesses still refuse to share this information.

Although INEOS have not signed the official pledge, the company has agreed to meet four targets by 2025.

In Europe, these include using an average of 30% recycled material for products destined for polystyrene packaging and providing a range of polyolefin-based packaging products made using at least 50% recycled content.

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