The Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) and Coca-Cola Ireland have jointly published recommendations aimed at advancing the circular economy for packaging.
The white paper, published this week, is titled Closing the Loop: Advancing the Circular Economy for Packaging.
Coca-Cola collaborated on the paper following a Real Talk Roundtable podcast, hosted by the IIEA.
The roundtable brought together leading experts from Irish civil society, policymaking, the civil service, academia, NGOs and industry.
They discussed how to make the circular economy for packaging a reality across Ireland.
The circular economy is an important model of production and consumption, which involves reducing packaging waste to a minimum, to support sustainability goals.
The Goals
Key recommendations from the paper include an increasing focus on opportunities emerging from the circular economy, a sectoral approach to government policy, enhancing recycling and reprocessing capacity, increasing information-sharing to generate ‘buy-in’, and incentivising the ‘re-use’ model.
The publication of the paper comes as the government has committed to meeting 2025 and 2030 recycling targets for plastic, of 50% and 55%, respectively.
Meanwhile, the EU Single-Use Plastic Directive includes a separate target of collecting 77% of plastic bottles for recycling by 2025, increasing to 90% by the end of the decade.
‘A Problem Of The Past’
Speaking about the publication, IIEA director general Alex White said, “The IIEA was pleased to work with Coca-Cola Ireland to produce this white paper as an important contribution to the public conversation on the climate crisis.
“It is clear the circular economy offers enormous potential for Ireland to meet its EU and national climate change objectives and allows every single one of us to play our part in making it a success.
“However, it demands that everyone – industry, government, NGOs and individuals – knows, understands, and acts on their responsibilities in this enormous undertaking.”
The country manager of Coca-Cola Ireland, Agnese Filippi, added, “As one of the world’s largest drinks companies, we must continually challenge ourselves to drive positive change.
“That includes ensuring that packaging has more than one life.
“Through our ambitious World Without Waste strategy, we aim to collect for recycling or reuse one bottle or can for every one we sell.
“However, achieving that goal cannot be achieved without the development of a circular economy for plastic packaging.
“The new roundtable white paper provides valuable new insights that will guide industry and government to close the loop for packaging within Ireland’s food-and-drink sector and make packaging waste a problem of the past.”
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