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Veolia joins ANZPAC Plastics Pact

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Veolia Australia and New Zealand is thrilled to be a founding member of the ANZPAC Plastics Pact. 

Yesterday, the ANZPAC Plastics Pact was officially launched, uniting leading businesses, NGOs, and governments behind a series of ambitious 2025 targets to eliminate plastic waste across Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islands region.

ANZPAC joins the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's Plastics Pact Network, a globally aligned response to plastic waste and pollution that unites over 550 member organisations behind the shared vision of a circular economy for plastic, where it never becomes waste or pollution.

Plastic pollution is one of the most pressing environmental issues facing the planet. By 2040, if we fail to act, the volume of plastic on the market will double, the annual volume of plastic entering the ocean will almost triple, and ocean plastic stocks will quadruple.  

The ambitious new cross-regional program will work to fundamentally transform our response to plastic by eliminating the plastics we don’t need, innovating to ensure that the plastics we do need are reusable, recyclable, or compostable, and circulating the plastic we use, keeping it in the economy and out of the environment. 

Founding Members, which includes Veolia, represent the complete plastics value chain, from leading brands, packaging manufacturers and retailers to resource recovery leaders, government institutions, and NGOs. The ANZPAC founding Members include.

Brooke Donnelly, CEO, Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (ANZPAC lead organisation) commented:

“On behalf of the ANZPAC team, and our passionate community of founding Members, it is my pleasure to officially launch the ANZPAC Plastics Pact for the Oceania region.  

“As well as a growing problem, plastic is also fundamentally an international one. To tackle plastic waste effectively we need to find solutions that aren’t constrained by national borders or old ways of thinking. Through the ANZPAC model, we will bring together the complete plastic supply chain across the entire Oceania region, and working with our global partners through the Plastics Pact network, develop solutions that deliver real and tangible change to the plastic problem for our region. 

Congratulations to all of our founding Members on their genuine commitment to achieving a circular economy for plastics and their willingness to break down traditional barriers between each other to scale truly innovative solutions”. 

ANZPAC Members will work towards four clear, actionable targets by 2025:

  1. Eliminate unnecessary and problematic plastic packaging through redesign, innovation and alternative (reuse) delivery models.
  2. 100% of plastic packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging by 2025.
  3. Increase plastic packaging collected and effectively recycled by 25% for each geography within the ANZPAC region.
  4. Average of 25% recycled content in plastic packaging across the region.

​The immediate next steps for the ANZPAC program to achieve its 2025 goals is to develop a roadmap for action. 

APCO has worked closely with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (The Foundation) and WRAP UK to develop ANZPAC. Having launched numerous Pacts already, The Foundation and WRAP UK brought extensive expertise to the development process and support when consulting with local stakeholders in the Pacific Islands and New Zealand.

Delivering a circular economy for plastics will bring financial, ecological and societal wealth, and I'm delighted to be part of the ANZPAC Plastic Pact which will drive this important agenda. Plastic itself is not the enemy - it plays a vital role in our society, but it's how we make it, how we use it, and what we do with it after use that needs changing for the better. Plastic is efficient in terms of energy and water use, and can be readily recycled; the more we capture, the more we can keep in use, and reduce our reliance on virgin materials.  ANZPAC Plastic Pact brings together the whole supply chain to discuss and implement ways we can achieve ecological transformation for plastics, by standardising packaging, cleaning-up, and making it simpler for people to recycle. If you want to future proof our planet from plastic waste and pollution, and instead create one where plastic brings value to humans and the environment, I encourage you to join and be part of this important dialogue.
Richard Kirkman
CEO Veolia Australia and New Zealand