It’s also a fresh indication that the efforts to curb the use of virgin plastics — including a key pledge made by dozens of companies since 2018 to make all such packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable — are failing. The rolling back of some commitments coincides with companies facing pressure from two years of rising raw material costs and investor calls to focus on profitability over saving the planet.
When Nestle tweaked its plastic packaging goals in 2022, few noticed. The shift in language on the website of the world’s largest food maker pledged to mostly use plastic “designed for” recycling by 2025 rather than only use “recyclable” or reusable packaging by next year — its original commitment.
The subtle rewording, highlighted publicly here for the first time, might seem like semantics. But the difference amounts to 280,000 metric tonnes of additional non-recyclable plastic waste a year, according to the latest available data for 2022. Piled up, it would weigh the same as 30 Eiffel towers or 1,400 Statues of Liberty.
