Walmart, Nestlé, Mondelēz, and Mars are among some major companies that have recently left the U.S. Plastics Pact, Sustainability Magazine reported. Falling short of the Pact's 2025 circular economy for plastics goals, these companies have decided to withdraw their participation and focus on more attainable sustainability initiatives.
What's happening?
Launched in 2020 as part of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's Plastics Pact Network, the U.S. Plastics Pact started as a coalition of over 60 plastics industry leaders, major corporations, government agencies, and research institutions. These leaders were all referred to as "activators," dedicated to achieving a circular economy for plastics. The Pact has grown to over 100 current activators, including major brands such as Aldi, Kraft Heinz, Coca-Cola, and Target.
The Pact's mission is not to deny the use of plastic in business operations, but to minimize the unnecessary use of plastic and "ensure that the plastics we do need are reusable, recyclable, or compostable, and circulating all the plastic items we use to keep them in the economy and out of the environment." per the USPP website.
At its start, the USPP set ambitious goals for activators to achieve by 2025. These goals included converting 100% of plastic packaging to reusable, recyclable, or compostable plastic, recycling or composting 50% of all plastic packaging, and achieving an average of 30% responsibly sourced or recycled plastic content.
USPP's Roadmap 2.0, or goals for 2030, continues to drastically reduce plastic waste and encourage greater environmental responsibility by businesses and consumers alike.
The activators who pulled out of the Pact — specifically Walmart and Mars — realized that, despite the strides the companies had taken to reach the Pact's goals, they would still fall short of achieving the target numbers.
"While we have made significant progress towards our ambitious 2025 goals for recycled content, virgin plastic reduction and packaging recyclability, we expect to fall short of achieving these goals by 2025," Walmart expressed in a sustainability press release.
Other activators, like the National Stewardship Action Council, felt that the effort invested in achieving the Pact's 2025 goals outweighed the benefits the Pact offered, hence the withdrawal of their participation.
Why is a circular economy for plastic important?
Despite falling short of the target Pact goals, these former activators still made progress toward the mission of achieving a circular economy for plastic, keeping its waste out of landfills.
For example, Walmart calculated that the company successfully diverted 83.5% of operational waste from landfills in 2023. Nestlé has made 89.5% of all its plastic packaging recyclable or reusable by year-end 2024. Nestlé also reduced its use of virgin plastics in packaging by 21.3% by the end of 2024, according to their website.
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Definitely 👍 The progress these companies have made toward reducing the unnecessary use of plastic and responsibly using plastic in cases where it is necessary significantly helps conserve resources and reduce the pollution created by the dirty fossil fuels burned during plastic production.
What can I do to help?
Reducing the use of plastic is not only a corporate responsibility. Everyday consumers can also play a significant role in reducing plastic use.
Some plastic swaps you can make at home include ditching plastic food containers, plastic grocery bags, plastic water bottles, and others for reusable products such as glass lunch boxes, reusable bags, and reusable water bottles.
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