Unilever has announced a new set of commitments to reduce its plastic waste and boost a circular economy for plastics.

Unilever has confirmed that by 2025 it will halve its use of virgin plastic, by reducing its absolute use of plastic packaging by more than 100,000 tonnes and accelerating its use of recycled plastic. Furthermore, it will be active in the collection of plastic waste, pledging to collect and process more plastic packaging than it sells (around 600,000 tonnes of plastic). This will be delivered through investment and partnerships which improve waste management infrastructure in many of the countries in which Unilever operates.

The company states that it is already on track to achieve its existing commitments to ensure all of its plastic packaging is reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025, and to use at least a quarter of recycled plastic in its packaging, also by 2025.

Alan Jope, Unilever CEO, said: “Plastic has its place, but that place is not in the environment. We can only eliminate plastic waste by acting fast and taking radical action at all points in the plastic cycle.”

Last year, Unilever UK & Ireland became a founding member of The UK Plastics Pact, the multi-stakeholder initiative, led by WRAP, which aims to transform the plastic packaging system in the UK.

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