Walmart does not expect to meet its 2025 plastic packaging reduction and recyclability targets, the retailer revealed in an update published February 28. This follows Walmart saying at the end of 2024 it would miss 2025 and 2030 greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets.
“While we have made significant progress towards our ambitious 2025 goals for recycled content, virgin plastic reduction, and packaging recyclability, we expect to fall short of achieving these goals by 2025,” the company wrote.
Walmart also said that 82 percent of its global private-brand plastic packaging is designed for recycling.
Walmart largely attributed increases in the weight of virgin plastic used to growth in product categories like food. It says it reduced its overall plastic packaging intensity, when measuring weight of plastic per net sales dollar. According to Walmart’s reporting to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, virgin weight totaled nearly 1.07 million metric tons in 2023.
“While we continue to work toward reducing waste, progress depends on many factors outside our control, including emergence and scalability of innovative more-recyclable materials, public policy for materials management systems, infrastructure development (especially to support recyclable and compostable materials), and societal behavior change,” Walmart wrote.
Walmart also participates in the U.S. Plastics Pact, which last year largely pushed collective 2025 goals to 2030. Those shared goals include reducing virgin plastic use by 30 percent; eliminating “problematic and unnecessary” materials; recycling half of all plastic packaging; averaging 30percent PCR or responsibly sourced biobased content across all plastic packaging; making all plastic packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable; and more.
https://boardconvertingnews.com/walmart-unlikely-to-meet-2025-plastic-recycling-targets/
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