There is ever-growing expectation for sustainable packaging. The search for better is reflected in consumer sentiment and regulatory attention. The focus on plastic goes wide with regulation increasingly the lever used to secure more rapid progress on the road towards a circular economy.
The value of rigid plastics and the size of the circularity challenge
Rigid plastic packaging amounted to 1.1 trillion packs in 2023, meaning this group of pack types represents 28% of global grocery packaging sales. Demand is led by PET bottles for soft drinks and thin wall plastic containers, the latter strongly specified across food end-uses, including yoghurt, butter and ice cream.
Rigid plastic is the first choice for many grocery products due to the versatility it affords brands in pack sizing, shaping/design and how it assures product protection, shelf life and prevents waste, ably packing multiple ingredient formats from powders to solids to liquids.
Its light weight brings distribution efficiency, especially positive in a time not only of persisting cost pressures for manufacturers and price pressures for consumers, but also of growing environmental pressures to increase the adoption of pack solutions that lower greenhouse gas emissions. Environmental scrutiny on rigid plastics, however, is strong as concerns around plastics’ polluting presence as waste remain steadfast.
Consumers and regulators want action on plastic
Two thirds of consumers are worried about climate change and associate climate concerns with packaging, especially plastic, as apparent in the actions that consumers take to live more sustainably.
In Euromonitor International’s global Voice of the Consumer: Lifestyles Survey, fielded January to February 2024, three of the top five actions consumers are taking involve packaging. “Reduce plastics use” is at the top of these, closely after “reduce food waste”, and followed by recycling and using sustainable packaging.
Regulation is set to accelerate change on reducing plastic’s environmental impact, from broad pieces of climate legislation, such as the US Inflation Reduction Act and European Climate Law, to regional and national packaging policies, where the focus is on building a cleaner, circular economy.
Europe leads the way in specific packaging and plastics-specific laws. The Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), which saw formal adoption of the text in April 2024, is important for the impact it can make, considering the size of the EU, to advance progress on plastics’ circularity. Targets include waste reduction, pack recyclability and material recovery and reuse, including increasing the use of recycled content in plastic packaging.
In the new EU rules, there are challenging targets for beverage manufacturers with the mandate for 90% collection of all single-use plastic bottles by 2029, and to make 10% available in durable refillable packaging by 2030
Source: Euromonitor International from the EU's Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) 2024
Recyclability, recycling and reuse are integral
Prioritising design for recyclability and/or composting needs to be combined with scaled-up collection, recycling and reuse of rigid plastics, to truly instil circular economy principles and reduce waste.
“Sustainable packaging” is promisingly the top sustainability claim that businesses are pursuing in new product launches in 2024
Source: Euromonitor Voice of the Industry: Sustainability Survey April 2024
Progress is apparent in pack redesigns specifying recyclability, reduced material use and, most markedly for rigid plastics, the replacement of virgin materials with recycled. Orkla Foods in Sweden has, for instance, switched from polypropylene (PP) to a lighter, recyclable PET bottle that contains a minimum 25% rPET content, while Aldi in the UK has transitioned all its soft drinks bottles to 100% rPET. These redesigns help brands reduce their carbon impact and drastically reduce dependence on higher-emitting virgin polymers.
Recycled plastic specification brings the renewable potential of plastic to the fore. Communicating credentials that consumers trust, eg “recyclable” and “recycled content”, can help brands improve the narrative, for plastic to be viewed as a viable sustainable material destined for reuse.
The power of policy to spur collective momentum
Regulation, such as the PPWR, has the potential not only to advance packaging progress beyond current corporate actions, but also to impact beyond Europe if wholly or in part replicated, as governments around the world take note, seeking to make good on their own climate and packaging pledges.
51% of professionals in 2023 cite “comply with legislation” as the reason for investing in sustainability, up significantly from 41% in 2022
Source: Euromonitor Voice of the Industry: Sustainability Survey April 2024
The EU’s Single-Use Plastic Directive target for tethered caps, which came into full effect in July and mandates tethered caps on plastic beverage packaging up to 3-litres in size, shows how regulation can deliver change, to reduce the loss of plastic caps to litter. Tethered caps are now a familiar sight across Europe. On a more local level, the UK’s Plastic Packaging tax, levied on material with less than 30% recycled content, has already strongly increased the use of recycled resins in packaging, and extending to labels and multipacks.
We expect a rise in the implementation of extended producer responsibility (EPR) programmes and deposit return schemes (DRS) to further improve packaging collection, recycling and reuse. There is also a much-anticipated global UN plastic treaty, expected by the end of the year, that could bring an internationally harmonised approach to the handling of plastics as the push for renewable packaging intensifies.
To future-proof rigid plastics, companies should embed design circularity, and inform consumers on progress made. The hand of regulation will undoubtedly add impetus for greater action. Many businesses today have investment plans that target recyclability, compostability, recycling and reuse; more will need to act, as regulation strengthens.
Learn about rigid plastic packaging and the path to circularity, the challenges, innovations and opportunities for the consumer packaging value chain, in our report, Sustainable Packaging: Circularity for Rigid Plastics.