Financial think tank points out flaws in current recycling processes

According to financial think tank, Planet Tracker, recycling rates need to radically improve globally. According to research by Planet Tracker, Currently less than nine per cent of plastic waste is recycled and is too often focused on just the container when the right choice of label ‘could be a game changer.’

Planet Tracker claims, 141 million tonnes of plastic packaging are currently produced every year, the biggest consumers of packaging include: Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, Unilever, Mars and L’Oréal, using over 7.7 million tonnes in 2021. 

Planet Tracker believes that increased regulation on higher recycled content in packaging has led to a rapid rise in the demand for recovered material. However, the availability of recycled plastics is not currently able to meet this rising demand.

The financial think tank points out this is resulting in increasing prices for recycled material. In 2022, the recycled PET pellet in Europe sold at a 51 per cent price premium to virgin (fossil fuel) feedstock at EUR 797 (USD 868) per tonne. In fact, UK manufacturers currently prefer to pay the Plastic Tax at GBP 200 (USD 248) per tonne as it is cheaper than using recycled content in their packaging.

In this report, Planet Tracker advocates for consumer brands to adopt a self-help approach that ensures the material of labels matches the material of the container, boosting recycling rates. 

Thalia Bofiliou, senior investment analyst at Planet Tracker comments: “Across all sectors, global brands and retailers have made commitments to incorporate recycled content into their products. To improve the current supply of recycling products, industry needs to find solutions to reach these public commitments. 

If these consumer companies added a sleeve label ideally of the same material as the bottle, this would increase the supply of recycled material and therefore reduce the cost differential to the fossil fuel-based feedstock”.