The Veolia Southwark Integrated Waste Management Facility in London.
Photographer: Jose Sarmento Matos/BloombergNestle Shifted Critical Recycling Goal and Revealed Scale of Plastics Problem
Less than 10% of all plastics are recycled — and companies are dialing down their own targets.
When Nestle SA tweaked its plastic packaging goals in 2022, few noticed. The shift in language on the website of the world’s largest food maker pledged to mostly use plastic “designed for” recycling by 2025 rather than only use “recyclable” or reusable packaging by next year — its original commitment.
The subtle rewording, highlighted publicly here for the first time, might seem like semantics. But the difference amounts to 280,000 metric tons of additional non-recyclable plastic waste a year, according to the latest available data for 2022. Piled up, it would weigh the same as 30 Eiffel towers or 1,400 Statues of Liberty.