Welcome to the Plastics Weekly, NEO’s regular news monitoring of the plastics industry.
This week’s highlights:
- More than 100 current and former Olympic athletes have called on beverage giants Coca-Cola and Pepsi to stop selling single-use plastic bottles and promote reusable products when they sponsor sports events. The push came ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic games, which begin on July 26 and which Coca-Cola is sponsoring. In a letter addressed to the CEOs of the Coca-Cola Company, its European subsidiary Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, and U.S.-based rival PepsiCo, the athletes — 22 of which are competing in Paris — urged the companies to end plastic pollution “in the spirit of the Olympics and sport.” (Politico)
- Big brands and start-ups have unveiled a new generation of detergent strips, tiles and sheets that are disrupting plastic packaging in the laundry aisle. New packaging from the likes of Tide, Procter & Gamble, and Arm & Hammer is making an environmental statement, with plastic giving way to paperboard for waterless detergent formats. The initiative, part of Plastics Free July, is aimed at promoting alternate packaging materials and encouraging consumers to act against plastic pollution. (Plastics Today)
- Nestle SA, the world’s largest food producer, made a small tweak to its recycling goal that revealed a large-scale plastics problem. Nestle’s shift in plastic packaging goals from “recyclable” to “designed for recycling” by 2025 could lead to 280,000 metric tonnes of additional non-recyclable plastic waste annually. This change reflects broader challenges in reducing plastic use, as companies facerising costs and struggle to meet sustainability pledges. Despite efforts to increase recyclability, less than 10% of plastic is recycled globally. (Bloomberg)