Mondelez International to cut its virgin plastic use

The company says it has committed to cutting its virgin plastic use in rigid plastic packaging by at least 25 percent by 2025 and supports "reasonable" federal EPR legislation.

Mondelez International, headquartered in Chicago, has announced that it has a goal to reduce the amount of virgin plastic used in its rigid plastic packaging by 25 percent by 2025, which would equate to a 5 percent reduction in virgin plastic use in its overall plastic packaging portfolio, assuming a constant portfolio mix.

The company says it will achieve this reduction through a combination of measures, including the elimination of plastic material, increased use of recycled content and the adoption of reuse models.

“Our support for a more sustainable future for plastics is clear,” says Dirk Van de Put, chairman and chief executive officer for Mondelez International. “We’re already one of the most efficient users of plastic packaging in the consumer goods space, and we’ve made significant strides to reduce plastic packaging use, substitute plastics for other materials and design for recyclability.”

He adds, “Given the strong progress we’ve made in packaging, and our focus on leading a sustainable future for snacking, we’re committing to reductions in virgin plastics use and investments in innovation to remove packaging or switch to more easily recyclable materials.”

The company already had a goal to use 5 percent recycled content by weight across its plastic packaging and to design all packaging for recyclability by 2025, a goal Mondolez says it is on track to achieve with 94 percent of its packaging already designed to be recycled.

The company, which includes the brands Oreo, Cadbury, Tang, Trident and Tolberone, says it invests more than $30 million annually in technology, resources and recycling infrastructure and anticipates an acceleration in this investment over time. Between 2019 and 2025, Mondelēz International anticipates spending approximately $300 million on plastics sustainability.

Mondelez International’s portfolio of snacks typically uses lightweight, flexible film plastic packaging, which the company says reduces its plastic packaging footprint by weight and brings environmental benefits including reduced transportation emissions and prolonged shelf-life.

The company says that while packaging can be increasingly designed for recyclability, recycling infrastructure improvements, such as those proposed under extended producer responsibility (EPR) programs, are needed globally, particularly for flexible films. Therefore, Mondelez is supporting what it describes as a “reasonable, federal EPR scheme in the United States that caters to flexible films, as well as other plastics.”

“Increasing recyclability of materials is a great start, but we need actual recycling rates of various materials to increase,” says Christine Montenegro McGrath, vice president and chief of impact at the company. “Compared to rigid plastics like PET (polyethylene terephthalate), flexible plastic films, like the flow wraps we use on our snacks, are still difficult to collect, sort and reprocess economically because the infrastructure doesn’t exist yet for this to be done at scale. We are committed to playing our part to improve this, including partnering with stakeholders across sectors to drive action to combat plastics pollution.”


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