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The webinar will be available to watch on demand
Taking place on Thursday 17 January at 2pm GMT, this webinar will hear from some of the leading businesses that have pledged to undergo radical business transformations in order to phase-out single-use plastics from products and processes.
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That single-use was the official word of the year for 2018 demonstrates the seismic shift in public awareness of our plastic pollution problem. But it’s a problem that is not going away: in Britain, as much as two-thirds of all recyclable plastic packaging still ends up in landfill or being incinerated.
Yet, the fact remains that some plastics are indispensable in our modern world, and demand for plastics is actually expected to double over the next 20 years. Businesses can, therefore, find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place; committing to plastic phase-outs in response to consumer pressures whilst also trying to ensure that those phase-outs don’t lead to any unintended consequences.
This webinar, brought to you in association with waste management experts PHS, will combine best-practice case studies with expert insights to give you a clear way forward when it comes to eradicating single-use plastics from your operations, products and supply chain.
Sky’s head of inspirational business & Sky Ocean Rescue Fiona Ball is confirmed for the webinar, offering insight on the broadcaster’s pledge to eliminate single-use plastics from its products operations and supply chain by 2020. More speakers will be announced over the coming weeks.
Also announced for the webinar is Cranswick’s site director of gourmet pastry, Andy Mayer, who will outline how the premium food supplier plans to use 100% recyclable and sustainable sourced packaging and reduce plastics usage by 50% by 2025.
Key discussion points:
- The relationship between business, policymakers and consumers on the single-use plastics issue
- Avoiding the ‘unintended consequences’ of replacing single-use plastics
- Developing new partnerships to spur innovation
- Closing the loop in your supply chain
If you have a question for any of the speakers, please leave a comment below and the edie team will consider it for the live Q&A at the end of the webinar.
Matt Mace
Dear Edie,
Here in Asia we are pushing for a different approach to targets, elimination, bans and taxation. It’s a much more wholistic approach that begins with securing the supply chain from source.
The ultimate aim is to establish a sustainable and circular plastics & packaging industry not just to achieve targets. We have published the Asian Plastics & Packaging Agreement with the first update that begins the process to ensure a more robust and achievable agreement.
It is designed to ensure that even those companies that do not sign up for targets can still participate and take advantage of the benefits associated with a secure and certified supply chain. It also aims to create a plastics & packaging industry we can trust.
You can download all the documents plus read the latest update from our website: http://www.circulareconomyasia.org/asia-plastic-packaging-agreement/.
This will be a long slow process and Circular Economy Asia is in it for the long haul. But the continual discussion on the elimination of single use plastics is simply putting your finger into a leaking dyke.
Adrienna Zsakay
Executive Director
Circular Economy Asia
As the discussion is on single use plastics, you will notice in the Asian Plastics & Packaging Agreement that we take 5 years to address this issue with suitable alternatives.
1. Asia is complex and fragmented with different layers and levels of development.
2. Solutions need to be carefully thought through and include the supply chain of all and every viable solution.
Lord Deben summed it up nicely at the Packaging Innovation Conference in London, September 2018.
"There is no silver bullet to replacing single-use plastics which would appease both consumers and policymakers in the short term while generating long-term sustainability benefits.
We cannot risk sustainability professionals who want to replace their company s plastic packaging ranges with potentially disastrous alternatives
due to a lack of clear policy guidance on the best solutions to the plastic problem.
Without an integrated answer, people go rushing after what seems to be an easy solution.
For Circular Economy Asia, our next step in this process is to define, through a collaborative approach, what is a sustainable and circular plastics & packaging industry. Once this is done we will have a foundation to build upon and have a much better chance of reviewing and ideating the problem of single use plastics.
Of course our peers and all the work already done by many people and companies will contribute to our work. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.