Successful ‘Plastic Pledge’ campaign

The Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Richard Bruton has welcomed the success of the Repak ‘Plastic Pledge’ initiative, which will see over 10,600 tonnes of plastic packaging diverted from waste by the end of 2019.

 

The news is part of Repak’s first progress report on its ‘Plastic Pledge’. This is the first report on Repak Members’ plastic reduction, with work required for the coming years to reach our plastic recycling targets of 55% by 2030 (current target is 22.5% and Ireland currently recycles 36% of all plastics)

 

The pledge commits signatories to reducing plastic packaging waste and helping Ireland increase packaging recycling rates. The report also monitors and quantifies the efforts to reduce plastic as part of Ireland’s efforts to meet obligations under the European Commission’s Circular Economy Package (CEP).

 

The first progress report shows that:

 

The initiatives undertaken to reduce plastic include reducing plastic bottle weights, removing non-detectable black plastic trays from fruit and vegetable product lines, moving from non-recyclable to compostable packaging and innovative design modifications to make packaging more sustainable.