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“First and foremost, [end of life] has a spotlight on it with plastics in
the ocean being a very hot topic today: consumers are seeing waste in
their pristine oceans so there’s definitely tons of pressure on the issue of
waste management,” says Simon. “But waste is a lot more complicated
than having a material be recyclable – we have to able to collect it,
aggregate it, ensure that there’s infrastructure and a market on the back
end that’s willing to buy the recyclable product.
“We need regulation, government support, resources, people and
equipment; and we need to have consistency and a culture driving allof that. If you look at the United States and Europe, each country has
variations within those steps: there are so many variables in question.
The variability is just overwhelming.”
Though abhorring images of sea lions with beer rings around
their necks would suggest otherwise, Simon argues that packaging is
necessary not only in guaranteeing delivery, food safety and shelf life
but also, for some countries, immense convenience. Certain rural areas
in India, for example, only have communal showers – meaning soaps
in sachets would make more sense than in bulk containers, though the
prior is much harder to recycle and recover.
“I think consumers see packaging as this thing they throw away,
but what they don’t understand is that packages are how they got the
product safely,” she says. “Imagine going to get milk and you don’t have
any jars: so will you pour the milk in your purse? Packaging is very
underappreciated, so it’s definitely not a matter of eliminating all the
evils that we know as packaging or plastics, but to force people and
companies to ask real questions like how to improve their footprint or
provide better solutions to achieve the same things plastics have been
doing but in a more environmentally friendly manner.”
In 2012, Coca-Cola, Ford, Heinz, Nike and Proctor & Gamble
announced a strategic alliance for the development of bio-plastic –
whether in innovation, up-cycling or seeking out new commercial uses
for these new materials.
Since then, Ford has spearheaded rice hull-filled electric cowl brackets
and cellulose fibre-reinforced console components – all made with materials
that are sustainably grown and locally sourced. Last year, Coca-Cola
debuted the first PET plastic bottle made entirely from plant materials.
Increasingly, even the smaller players are getting into the game:
Mitsui Chemicals launched a pair of bio-based high refractive index