In a great move to reduce plastic waste, consumer goods giant Unilever has pledged to reduce its plastic use by half by 2025.
Unilever owns more than 400 brands that include Surf, Dove, Comfort, and Lipton. It currently uses a massive 700,000 tonnes of plastic annually. However, it plans to slash that by half by using more recycled plastic, reusable packs, and refills, and looking at other alternative materials.
Alan Jope, the Chief Executive Officer of Unilever, said, “Plastic has its place but that place is not in the environment. 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.”
Here are our ambitious new commitments for a waste-free world: by 2025, we will reduce our use of virgin #plastic in our packaging by 50% and help collect and process more plastic packaging than we sell. #CircularEconomy https://t.co/IS7VyyvTlp pic.twitter.com/T0dLcC90ps
— Unilever (@Unilever) October 6, 2019
The company also said that in the next few years, it will improve its waste collection and processing procedures.
According to its official website, “We want to help build a circular economy in which we not only use less plastic, but also ensure the plastic we do use can be reused, recycled or composted.”
Jope also said, “Our plastic is our responsibility and so we are committed to collecting back more than we sell, as part of our drive towards a circular economy. This is a daunting but exciting task which will help drive global demand for recycled plastic.”
In the recent past, quite a few consumer goods companies have pledged to reduce the amount of plastic they use. For instance, Proctor & Gamble said in April that it planned to cut 50 per cent the amount of plastic it used by 2030. Meanwhile, Nestle also announced that it would launch biodegradable paper wrappers for its chocolate bars by 2025.
Reducing plastic consumption is the need of the hour. Because it takes years to decompose, plastic wastes are extremely deleterious to the environment. We hope more and more organizations abandon the use of plastics before they completely destroy the ecosystem. What do you think?
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