WASHINGTON (June 15, 2021) – Today, the U.S. Plastics Pact unveiled a Roadmap it believes will help reduce plastic waste in our environment and create a circular economy for plastics. The American Chemistry Council issued the following statement, which may be attributed to Joshua Baca, ACC’s vice president of plastics:
“We welcome the goals of the U.S. Plastics Pact’s Roadmap to 2025, a plan to further “kickstart action” on plastics recycling in the United States. We strongly share in the vision of a circular economy for plastics, and we look forward to opportunities to work with those involved.
“In 2018, America’s Plastics Makers established two critical goals: 100% of U.S. plastic packaging is recyclable or recoverable by 2030 and 100% of U.S. plastic packaging is re-used, recycled or recovered by 2040. Last year, we released our own Roadmap to Reuse, which outlined a vision to mobilize the entire plastics value chain to achieve these goals.
“Absent from the U.S. Plastic Pact’s roadmap is a recognition of the role that advanced recycling will play in ensuring more types of plastics are recycled and used again and again. Breakthroughs in advanced recycling enable us to reduce waste by capturing the post-use value of notable plastics, like multilayer pouches and film, mixed plastics and polystyrene foam food containers. And today’s advanced recycling technologies enable food, medical and pharmaceutical grade plastics to be produced from used plastics.
“As an industry, our hope is the Pact will focus more on proactive efforts to boost plastics recycling and to mature the circular economy for plastics.
"We also call for the Pact to be transparent, data-driven and make recommendations based on science and engineering, rather than ideology, when it comes to efforts to “phase out problematic plastic.” Having an inclusive and open process will generate more informed and reliable outcomes and minimize risks of unintended consequences that can result from material substitution.
“Elimination of certain types of plastics or bans do not increase plastics recycling. Hurriedly choosing winners and losers today also ignores the essential role plastic packaging plays in reducing greenhouse gas emissions compared to other materials.
“As noted, the Pact’s “…Roadmap is a living document and will evolve...” We hope part of this evolution will be continued dialogue to ensure a clear path to recycle all types of plastics.”
