Applying circular economy principles to global plastic packaging flows could ‘transform’ the plastics economy and ‘drastically reduce negative externalities’ such as leakage into oceans, according to a report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF).
The 118-page report, ‘The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the future of plastics’, uses analytical support from American consulting firm McKinsey & Company to create a vision of a closed-loop global plastics economy and suggests steps that could be taken to bring about the systemic shift needed to make the vision a reality.
The report finds that while plastics and plastic packaging are an integral part of the global economy and deliver many benefits, most of the material is only used once, with 95 per cent of the value of plastic packaging material, worth between US$80-120 billion (£56-84 billion) a year, being lost to the economy…