Initiative Commits to Meet Ambitious Circular Economy Goals By 2025
(Washington, DC) – The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) today joined the U.S. Plastics Pact, an initiative that combines a diverse group of stakeholders throughout the plastics and recycling industries, to collaborate on ambitious goals for systemic change and creating solutions toward a more circular economy for plastics in the United States. The first of its kind in North America, the U.S. Plastics Pact is a collaboration led by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, The Recycling Partnership, and World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
As a founding activator of the U.S. Plastics Pact, ReMA promotes the essential role recyclers play in achieving a circular economy for plastics. As such, ReMA joins more than 70 brands, retailers, NGOs, and government agencies across the plastics value chain in a unified approach for rethinking plastic products, packaging, and end of life solutions, including through promoting ISRI’s Design for Recycling® program.
“As the voice of the recycling industry, ReMA is proud to be a founding member of the U.S. Plastics Pact,” said ReMA Vice President of Advocacy Adina Renee Adler. “The pact underscores ISRI’s long-standing efforts to inspire stakeholders throughout the plastics and recycling supply chains to commit to responsibly manufacture, collect, and recycle plastics and plastic products.”
ISRI has agreed to contribute to the U.S. Plastics Pact’s four ambitious goals:
- Define a list of packaging to be designated as problematic or unnecessary by 2021 and take measures to eliminate them by 2025.
- By 2025, all plastic packaging is 100% reusable, recyclable, or compostable.
- By 2025, undertake ambitious actions to effectively recycle or compost 50% of plastic packaging.
- By 2025, the average recycled content or responsibly sourced bio-based content in plastic packaging will be 30%.
“ISRI’s Design for Recycling principles encourage companies to proactively consider the ultimate destiny of their products during the design-stage of a product’s development,” said Adler. “Combining U.S. Plastics Pact goals with ISRI’s Design for Recycling principles should inspire producers to design with recycling in mind and to incorporate more recycled plastics in the manufacture of new products.”
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The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, Inc. (ISRI) is the "Voice of the Recycling Industry™." ReMA represents 1,300 companies in 20 chapters in the U.S. and more than 40 countries that process, broker, and consume scrap commodities, including metals, paper, plastics, glass, rubber, electronics, and textiles. With headquarters in Washington, DC, the Institute provides education, advocacy, safety and compliance training, and promotes public awareness of the vital role recycling plays in the U.S. economy, global trade, the environment and sustainable development. Generating nearly $110 billion annually in U.S. economic activity, the scrap recycling industry provides more than 500,000 Americans with good jobs.