Resin industry faults Plastics Pact focus on ‘problematic' packaging

The U.S. Plastics Pact's focus on phasing out "problematic" plastics in packaging is drawing a strong pushback from resin makers, who see it as based more on ideology than science.

But leaders of the pact, which is made up of large consumer brands and retailers that are major users of plastics, say they see it as important to stop using materials with no clear path to recyclability.

The group on June 15 released a detailed road map for getting to its ambitious goals, which include a 50 percent U.S. plastics recycling rate and 30 percent recycled content by 2025.

Most of those goals were generally praised by industry groups, with the exception of the push to phase out hard-to-recycle plastics from packaging applications by 2025.

That idea raised sharp concerns with the American Chemistry Council and its resin supplier members.

"Elimination of certain types of plastics or bans do not increase plastics recycling," said Joshua Baca, ACC's vice president of plastics. "Hurriedly choosing winners and losers today also ignores the essential role plastic packaging plays in reducing greenhouse gas emissions compared to other materials."

ACC said it welcomed the broad goals of the pact. But Baca said the pact should be "transparent, data-driven and make recommendations based on science and engineering, rather than ideology, when it comes to efforts to 'phase out problematic plastic.'"

Without that, ACC said, there could be unintended environmental consequences in shifting away from plastics.

But the head of the pact defended the phase-out, saying it's needed because some materials "will never be on a circular trajectory — never achieve the status of reusable, recyclable or compostable."

"It is necessary to identify these materials and formats now in order to meet the overall 2025 timeline," said Executive Director Emily Tipaldo. "Some things can be designed out of use because there are other ways to deliver those products to the market using more circular solutions."

Later this year, the group plans to release a detailed list of plastics packaging that its member companies will move away from, and then implement that by 2025.

In an interview, Tipaldo said the group is interested in having more resin suppliers join the pact, in part to tap into their research and development expertise. The pact includes plastics processors and recyclers.

But only one resin maker, Eastman Chemical Co., is currently a member and Tipaldo said it's been "a bit more challenging" to build membership in the materials sector.

She said materials firms have echoed ACC's concern about creating a list of "problematic" plastic packaging. As well, she said they have expressed worries that pact timelines are too aggressive and individual companies would be held accountable if they're not met.

ACC also criticized the pact for not mentioning the role of chemical recycling in its road map.

"Absent from the U.S. Plastic Pact's road map is a recognition of the role that advanced recycling will play in ensuring more types of plastics are recycled and used again and again," Baca said, arguing that such technologies can be used to recycle films, mixed plastics and polystyrene foam containers.

"As an industry, our hope is the pact will focus more on proactive efforts to boost plastics recycling and to mature the circular economy for plastics," Baca said.

But Tipaldo, who worked as ACC's director of plastics packaging and consumer products from 2014-2018, said the pact does see a role for chemical recycling. It just doesn't think the technologies will be commercially ready by 2025, at least on a big enough scale.

"We are first and foremost focused on the activities and avenues that will reap the greatest benefits toward this end, and full-scale commercial chemical recycling is on a longer timeline," Tipaldo said.

She added that the pact "focuses on actions to achieve recyclability, reusability and compostability, not the types of recycling employed."

Other plastics groups and companies that have joined the pact welcomed its focus on broad, systemic efforts. Amcor Ltd., for example, in a statement pointed to the need for progress on building infrastructure and getting more consumer participation.

The National Association for PET Container Resources hailed the pact's call for major upgrades in PET bottle collection, saying that will be needed to raise the U.S. PET bottle recycling rate from 30 percent now to the ambitious 70 percent rate called for in the pact.

"We view a 70 percent recycle rate for PET bottles as ambitious, but doable as there are several examples of rates exceeding these levels in well-designed incentivized collection processes being conducted by countries, states and provinces around the world," said Darrel Collier, NAPCOR executive director.

The U.S. pact, which has nearly 100 members, also called for extended producer responsibility systems to fund improved collection and recycling systems.

One of the pact's parent groups, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, also put out a statement June 15 with 100 companies, including several large plastics firms, in support of EPR.

Berry Global, Borealis and Indorama Ventures signed that statement, along with large consumer product firms that are also in the U.S. Pact, like Coca-Cola Co. and Walmart.

EMF argued that "mandatory, fee-based EPR is the only proven and likely way to provide … sufficient funding to make the economics of recycling work."