21 July 2022

Media release from APCO

The Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO), under the Australia New Zealand Pacific Island Plastics Pact (ANZPAC), has today published the ANZPAC Roadmap to 2025. This critical new document outlines the approach required by key players across the entire plastics value chain to achieve the ANZPAC Regional Plastic Targets by 2025 and, more broadly, to develop a circular economy for plastics.

The ANZPAC Roadmap is the culmination of extensive discussions between more than 100 organisations, both large and small, coming together across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands over the past year to outline the necessary outcomes and activities required to achieve the ANZPAC Targets.

The Roadmap provides a pathway to substantially change our relationship with plastic packaging by recognising the unique position of the organisations involved and identifying the common barriers to achieving a circular economy in the region, including access to data, geographical challenges, market size, technology, and cultural challenges.

Brooke Donnelly, CEO, APCO (ANZPAC lead organisation) commented: “This incredible collaboration across countries highlights the critical importance of coming together as a region to learn from each other, align and accelerate the work to overhaul our relationship with plastic packaging and develop long-term sustainable solutions.

“If our work is to be successful, it’s vital that businesses across the packaging value chain throughout Oceania familiarise themselves with the actions outlined in this Roadmap and incorporate these into their business planning”.

Margaret Stuart, Oceania Director Corporate Affairs and Sustainability, Nestlé said: “We’re working hard to reduce our use of virgin plastics and make our packaging recyclable or reusable, but we know we need to do more, and we know we can’t do it alone. The ANZPAC Roadmap gives us a framework within which we can collaborate in the region to ensure that packaging can be collected and recovered for a better future.”

Marc Gaugler, Portfolio Lead for Distributed & Circular Manufacturing says that to support the transition of New Zealand’s plastic industry, it is pivotal that government, academia and private sectors jointly identify, develop and implement circular economy aligned approaches.

“The challenge ahead of us is bigger than one company, country or even continent – partnerships are key. The ANZPAC Plastic Pact takes a regional approach to circularity of plastic packaging, an important piece in the puzzle towards circularity and a circular bioeconomy, alongside other NZ partners.”

The Roadmap identifies organisations from across the supply chain with leading, supporting or consulting roles for each of the core activities aligned to each of the Targets.

The four ANZPAC Regional Plastics Targets are:

• Eliminate unnecessary and problematic plastic packaging through redesign, innovation, and alternative (reuse) delivery models.
• 100% of plastic packaging will be reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025.
• Increase plastic packaging collected and effectively recycled by 25% for each geography within the ANZPAC region.
• Average of 25% recycled content in plastic packaging across the region.

The full roadmap can be accessed on the APCO website.