The FMCG giant, Unilever announced its commitment to reduce plastic waste and eliminate over 1,00,000 tonnes of plastic packaging by 2025. The company also said that it will be collecting and processing plastic packaging more than ever now. Unilever also announced that by 2025 it will cut down its use of ‘virgin plastic’ by halve and will greatly focus on using recycled plastic. Virgin plastic is made from petrochemical feedstock that has never been used before.
The firm has already slashed its waste by one third since 2010 and has also experimented with new packaging ways under its 'Less Plastic' initiative.
The current plastic packaging footprint of Unilever stands at around 7,00,000 tonnes annually. The company made a statement saying, “This commitment makes Unilever the first major global consumer goods company to commit to an absolute plastics reduction across its portfolio.”
Unilever claimed that it already working its way to achieve the goal of reducing plastic usage and is continuously ensuring that all of the plastic packaging that it uses is recyclable and reusable by 2025 and at least 25 per cent of the packaging comes from the recycled plastic by 2025.
Alan Jope, the CEO of Unilever said, “We can only eliminate plastic waste by acting fast and taking radical action at all points in the plastic cycle. Our starting point has to be design, reducing the amount of plastic we use and then making sure that what we do use increasingly comes from recycled sources. We are also committed to ensuring all our plastic packaging is reusable, recyclable or compostable.”
The company will also work on creating a greener version of the products like shampoo bars, deodorant stick and refillable toothpaste tablets that would assist in slashing the use of virgin plastic. In India, the giant consumer product company sells a number of popular brands like Dove, Lux, Surf Excel, Vaseline and Ponds among many others.
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