American multi-national confectionery giant, Mondelēz International announced an increased commitment to reducing its use of virgin plastics in its packaging.
While the company claims an already below-sector-average use of plastics in its portfolio by weight, Mondelēz International continues its goal to reduce plastic packaging.
The commitment is part of its ongoing efforts to eliminate, reduce, replace and recycle plastic packaging across its portfolio, building on its existing 2025 goals and reducing virgin rigid plastic packaging by at least 25%, or 5% across all its packaging portfolio.
This seems like an unambitious target when you consider they also say that they will have 100% of their packaging as recyclable in the same time frame. So, their plastic can be recycled, but they will only recycle 5%?
The company also said it supported the introduction of a U.S. Federal recycling scheme that takes into account the various types of plastic packaging used across the industry today.
In order to reduce virgin plastic use, a combination of measures including elimination of plastic material, increased use of recycled content, and the adoption of reuse models must be actioned by the company.
Dirk Van de Put, Chairman & CEO of Mondelēz International said:
Our support for a more sustainable future for plastics is clear.
We’re already one of the most efficient users of plastic packaging in the consumer goods space and we’ve made significant strides to reduce plastic packaging use, substitute plastics for other materials and design for recyclability.
Given the strong progress we’ve made in packaging, and our focus on leading a sustainable future for snacking, we’re committing to reductions in virgin plastics use and investments in innovation to remove packaging or switch to more easily recyclable materials.
The company currently invests over $30 million a year in technology, resources and recycling infrastructure and anticipates an acceleration in this investment over time.
In total, between 2019 and 2025, Mondelēz International anticipates spending approximately $300 million in creating a sustainable future for plastics.
Mondelēz International’s portfolio of snacks uses flexible films, which is a lightweight plastic packaging to protect food, which reduces the company’s plastic packaging footprint by weight. I.e. they make their wrappers thinner, so they use less material.