More than 40 partners have joined the Canada Plastics Pact, representing diverse parts of the plastics value chain
The Canada Plastics Pact will enable companies across the plastics value chain in the country to collaborate and innovate (Credit: Pixabay)
Leading businesses, NGOs, and the government in Canada have united behind 2025 targets to make packaging waste a thing of the past by launching the Canada Plastics Pact.
It brings together key players to collectively work towards ambitious 2025 goals that they could never achieve on their own.
More than 40 partners have joined the Pact, representing diverse parts of the plastics value chain.
Because plastic packaging accounts for 47% of all plastic waste, it is the immediate focus of the Pact’s collective efforts.
David Hughes, who is the CEO of The Natural Step Canada, the host organisation of the Canada Plastics Pact, said: ”Joining together through the Canada Plastics Pact is a diverse group of leaders from across Canada’s plastics value chain.
“While I am impressed by their genuine commitment to achieving a zero plastic waste economy, it is their willingness to break down barriers between each other to scale truly innovative solutions that I find most inspiring.”
Canada Plastics Pact to ensure an average of 30% recycled content across all plastic packaging by 2025
The Canada Plastics Pact will enable companies across the plastics value chain in the country to collaborate and innovate.
It will build on significant work that has already been underway to reduce plastic waste, and will grow over time.
The group will work to eliminate the plastics that are not needed, innovate to ensure that the plastics that are needed are reusable, recyclable, or compostable, and circulate the plastic used, keeping it in the economy and out of the environment.
It’s working towards four clear, actionable targets by 2025, which include support efforts towards 100% of plastic packaging being designed to be reusable, recyclable or compostable.
In addition to this, it will define a list of plastic packaging that is to be designated as problematic or unnecessary and take measures to eliminate them, and undertake actions to ensure that at least 50% of plastic packaging is recycled or composted.
It will also ensure there is an average of at least 30% recycled content across all plastic packaging by weight.
Canada is the latest country to join circular economy non-governmental organisation the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Plastics Pact network, a globally-aligned response to plastic waste and pollution.
In line with its vision of a circular economy for plastic, the Canada Plastic Pact facilitates innovation and knowledge sharing, and drives collaborative action and solutions tailored for the country’s unique needs and challenges.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Plastics Pact programme manager Sonja Wegge said: “By setting clear 2025 targets and working together to achieve them, businesses and policymakers in the Canada Plastics Pact have taken an important step on the journey to a circular economy for plastic, in which it never becomes waste or pollution.
“We are delighted to welcome the Canada Plastics Pact in our growing global network of Pacts, and hope to see many other organisations unite behind the vision of a circular economy for plastic that has already brought together more than 1,000 organisations worldwide through our New Plastics Economy initiative.”