By Sabine Schlorke
It’s time to rethink plastics. For 50 years we’ve been grappling with waste — the final chapter of plastic’s life cycle. We also need to focus on the initial stages of plastic manufacturing and reimagine the industry with a vastly reduced waste footprint.
Nobody needs to be reminded that the make-use-and-discard economy is unsustainable, inefficient and an existential threat to the natural world. If plastic continues to be thought of as a throwaway product, the environmental problems we face — increasingly contaminated oceans, over-flowing landfills, greenhouse gas emissions that exacerbate global warming — will only worsen. Consumers are increasingly demanding environmentally-responsible products and manufacturers are responding.
But how do we revolutionize an industry as ubiquitous as plastics? IFC works with partners in emerging economies to increase awareness and use of sustainable measures in manufacturing and identify private sector solutions to increase energy efficiency, decrease greenhouse gas emissions, and find other ways to reduce waste and protect the planet. At the recent IFC Manufacturing Conference in Marrakech, Rizwan Diwan, executive director of Novatex, a Pakistani conglomerate, explained how his company has replaced throwaway packaging with steel crates to transport bottle preforms in Pakistan. “There is a huge opportunity and you can be profitably sustainable,” he said.
The developing world has a lot at stake. According to the OECD, 242 million tons of plastic waste was generated worldwide in 2016. East Asia and the Pacific accounted for 57 million tons, Europe and Central Asia 45 million tons, and North America 35 million tons.
There are positive developments. Two years ago Kenya and Rwanda banned plastic bags, and this year the European Parliament approved a ban on single-use plastic products such as straws, plates and cutlery. Businesses are also stepping up. Dove, a personal care brand owned by Unilever, recently announced that it would use 100 percent recycled plastic bottles, stop using plastic to package its soaps and offer refillable and reusable containers for its deodorants. Dove’s products are sold in about 150 countries around the world. The strategy “will reduce our use of virgin plastic by more than 20,500 tons a year,” the company said in a statement.
Another approach to reducing plastic waste is to use less for packaging. While it might be two years or 10 years before someone replaces a plastic product like Tupperware’s food storage containers, the plastic wrap the product is packaged in becomes garbage two minutes after getting home. Anyone who has bought a television is familiar with the mountain of plastic used to wrap and protect the product. We are all grateful that our new television arrived unscathed after a 7,000-mile journey from factory to cargo container to warehouse to our house, but we gasp at the volume of plastic shipping material strewn across the living room floor. Surely there is a less wasteful alternative.
Indeed, finding sustainable substitutes could make a big impact. Bioplastics made from corn could be an alternative to plastic shipping materials. Elsewhere, bags made from jute and hemp are replacing plastic bags. Around the world we are seeing paper straws replacing plastic straws. Organic materials made from sugar cane and mushrooms and even prawn shells are being processed into plastic alternatives. The retail giant Walmart in February committed to achieve 100 percent recyclable, reusable or compostable packaging for its private brand products by 2025. It says it will use its “size and scale” to encourage sustainability.
A handful of innovative companies are going one step further. They are beginning to apply full life cycle thinking to their product designs. The mantra is “reusable” rather than just “recyclable.” They are inventing products that can be reused by manufacturers at the end of their life cycles and integrated with little design modifications into next generation products. It is a challenge that requires creative thinking, but the economic payoff as well as the environmental benefits are enormous, and their ingenuity should be applauded.
The clothing company Patagonia, for example, has taken that to heart with an initiative it calls the 4-R Philosophy: Reduce, Repair, Reuse and Recycle. But manufacturers still have a long way to go. For example, using recycled plastics is often not economically competitive. The fact is, it is generally cheaper for manufacturers to produce new plastic than it is to recycle old plastic, and the bottom line is the bottom line.
IFC increasingly is engaging with the issues around reducing, reusing and ultimately recycling plastics, exploring where we can move the discussion — and action — forward. We have already shown our commitment to sustainability through our work with manufacturers across a range of industries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in production, for example, and we are always seeking to expand our efforts. With our partners, IFC is investing in a reimagined and environmentally responsible future.
Sabine Schlorke is the Global Head of Manufacturing of the International Finance Corporation.
