To stop packaging pollution we need a circular economy where we eliminate what we don’t need, innovate towards new packaging, products and business models, and circulate all the packaging we do use, keeping it in the economy and out of the environment. But collection, sorting, and recycling of packaging typically costs more to do than the money it makes. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is the only proven and likely way to provide funding that is dedicated, ongoing, and sufficient. Through EPR schemes, companies putting packaging on the market are required to pay for its collection, sorting, and recycling after use.
For the first time, more than 150 leading businesses and other organisations from across the packaging value chain, publicly recognise that without EPR, packaging collection and recycling is unlikely to be meaningfully scaled and tens of millions of tonnes of packaging will continue to end up in the environment every year.
Companies including: Beiersdorf, Danone, Diageo, Ferrero, FrieslandCampina, H&M, Henkel, Inditex, L’Oréal, Mars, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Reckitt, Schwarz Group, Tetra Pak, The Coca-Cola Company, Unilever, and Walmart (companies in red are member of EXPRA`s Strategic Committee). See also the press release of EXPRA, strongly supporting this move as only if we have functioning waste management systems all over the world we can make packaging circular and stop the marine litter problematic.
You can find more information here.