Rachel Goldstein, North America Policy Director, Sustainable in a Generation Plan, Mars
Rachel Goldstein, North America Policy Director, Sustainable in a Generation Plan, Mars
Plastic air pollution is undoubtedly one of the vital vital points society faces at this time – littering the atmosphere from seafloor to mountain high, damaging wildlife, and impacting the well being of our planet. Plastic packaging is a contributor to this air pollution and whereas not all the time littered, it’s not all the time recyclable or compostable, and even when it’s recyclable, it’s not all the time recycled.
Packaging sustainability is a large focus for our workforce right here at Mars who’re rethinking our strategy to create a world the place packaging would not develop into waste. After all, packaging performs a significant position in delivering prime quality merchandise to customers – from defending substances as they journey from farms to factories and completed merchandise to prospects and customers, to preserving freshness and conveying vital diet and well being data.
Packaging supplies have steadily migrated to versatile plastic for a lot of causes starting from value, performance, client desire and sustainability issues. This versatile, lightweight packaging is extraordinarily materials environment friendly by lowering the quantity of fabric wanted to guard the product. But it additionally poses actual challenges in gathering, sorting and finally getting recycled. Policy performs a essential position in unlocking options.
At Mars we now have set bold objectives to cut back the quantity of packaging we use, to pilot reuse fashions the place acceptable and for packaging we have to be one hundred pc reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025. We know that we now have a duty to play our half via a continued deal with packaging design and innovation, however it’s not that easy– as a result of the recycling infrastructure is past our direct management. This is a problem for us, and plenty of others within the business, because the versatile plastic we use to protect high quality and guarantee meals security can’t presently be recycled at scale.
We should create a coverage atmosphere that helps all recycling applied sciences, from the mechanical recycling processes we use at this time to superior recycling applied sciences 
What insurance policies may also help us unlock options?
First, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), is an efficient coverage device to convey wanted funding into recycling infrastructure to enhance gathering and sorting programs. In the U.S, we’re working alongside the Circular Economy Accelerator (CEA) and the Sustainable Food Policy Alliance (SFPA) at each the state and federal ranges sharing our EPR ideas and with civil society teams like Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the OneSource Coalition. We need to ensure that revenues generated from EPR are invested within the growth of options to complicated packaging wants comparable to bettering entry to recycling and reworking recycling programs to create a really round financial system. Oregon and Maine have now signed EPR payments into regulation. We hope to proceed to have interaction with coverage makers on the implementation of EPR throughout the U.S. and to work with the FDA to construct the availability of recycled content material that’s appropriate for meals contact.
Second, we should create a coverage atmosphere that helps all recycling applied sciences, from the mechanical recycling processes we use at this time to superior recycling applied sciences comparable to pyrolysis. Scaling superior recycling applied sciences will permit for the recycling of laborious to recycle supplies and for recycling programs that produce food-safe recycled materials that meals and beverage producers want.
We acknowledge that our collective objectives will solely be met via systemic change and collaboration together with motion from companies, innovators, non-profits and policymakers alike. In doing so, we will obtain the implementation of efficient coverage and be certain that significant funding and scaling of infrastructure investments don’t adversely influence the atmosphere or deprived populations to create a future with out packaging waste.