5 takeaways from the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment

Today, more than 275 brands, retailers, recyclers, governments and NGOs are announcing a shared vision to close the loop on plastic pollution.

In a first-of-its-kind collaboration, the signatories to the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment — collectively responsible for producing 20 percent of all plastic packaging globally and represent the full value chain for plastics — have pledged to eradicate plastic waste and pollution. The scale, scope and shared approach of today’s announcement, made at the Our 

Oceans conference in Bali, makes it one of the most significant actions around plastic pollution to date.The commitment, launched with the social media hashtag #LineInTheSand, is being led by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in collaboration with U.N. Environment. While many signatories had set individual goals prior to today’s announcement, this represents a far broader scale and scope of commitments to meaningfully tackle plastic pollution.

Signatories of the commitment are formally endorsing the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s framework of a circular economy for plastics, which centers on ensuring that plastics never become waste. That vision is defined by six key points: i) Elimination of problematic or unnecessary plastic packaging through redesign, innovation and new delivery models is a priority, ii) Reuse models are applied where relevant, reducing the need for single-use packaging, iii) All plastic packaging is 100 percent reusable, recyclable or compostable, iv) All plastic packaging is reused, recycled or composted in practice, v) The use of plastic is fully decoupled from the consumption of finite resources, vi) All plastic packaging is free of hazardous chemicals, and the health, safety and rights of all people involved are respected.

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