How revolutionising food and beverage packaging can drive shift to a circular economy

Aisha Stenning

Programme Manager – Plastics Initiative, Ellen MacArthur Foundation

Find out how innovations in food and beverage packaging can help tackle the plastic pollution crisis.

Whether it is our drinks bottles, microwave meals or sachets of ketchup, plastic packaging has become synonymous with our food and beverage products. In many cases, the packaging has become more identifiable than the meal itself.

Circular economy tackles plastic pollution

Packaging is spilling into our streets, beaches and oceans. A circular economy is the only solution that can match the scale of the plastic pollution crisis and needs the packaging value chain to expand its innovation efforts, reimagining how our food and drink containers are delivered.

In this circular system, unnecessary and problematic packaging is eliminated; we innovate to ensure the plastics we do need are made to be reusable, recyclable or compostable; and finally, we circulate all plastic we use to keep it out of the environment.

Moving from single-use to reuse models
presents one of the biggest opportunities
to reduce plastic pollution.

Making meaningful plastics progress

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Global Commitment has united over 1,000 organisations, including household names in food and beverage production, behind this vision of a circular economy for plastics. Since its inception, signatories — representing over 20% of the market — have increased their use of recycled plastics by 1.5 million tonnes per annum (equivalent to a barrel of oil left in the ground every two seconds).

Despite making meaningful progress, many signatories are on track to miss their 2025 targets, and with a large part of industry yet to take action, the world is off track to eliminate plastic waste and pollution.

Reuse models offer key solutions

The packaging value chain must embrace innovations and underutilised strategies to tackle the growing plastic pollution crisis. Lessons from the Global Commitment found that moving from single-use to reuse models presents one of the biggest opportunities to reduce plastic pollution. Reuse is currently niche, with the signatory group’s overall share stuck below 2%. However, with many economically and environmentally beneficial models, it is ripe for further innovation to scale.

We need the food and beverage packaging value chain to scale innovation and collaboration to ensure that our favourite products are delivered to us in a way that benefits the planet and consumers.