TOMRA Group announced to join the international organization "Alliance to End Plastic Waste" (AlliancetoEndPlasticWaste), committed to working with members of the alliance to eliminate plastic waste pollution and improve the efficiency of resource use.
Established in January 2019, the Alliance to End Plastic Waste is a global non-profit organization that currently has 30 companies from the entire plastic value chain covering production, use, sales, processing, recycling and regeneration. , including global consumer goods giants such as Procter & Gamble, Pepsi and Henkel, leading plastics producers such as Dow, ExxonMobil, LyondellBasell, and world-leading environmental management companies such as Suez and Veolia.
Member companies within the organization have pledged US$1.5 billion (10.3 billion yuan) to eliminate plastic waste pollution. The consortium also conducts research on the environment and economic development through close collaboration with the financial community, government and NGOs.
Member companies of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste have committed to spend US$1.5 billion (about 10.3 billion yuan) over the next five years to develop solutions to tackle plastic pollution, minimize plastic waste, and promote waste Plastic recycling. The coalition's key areas of focus include infrastructure, technological innovation, education, social outreach, and the clean-up of plastic waste related to the circular economy of plastics.
Mr. David Taylor, Executive Officer of Procter & Gamble, who is the chairman of the "Alliance to End Plastic Waste", welcomed TOMRA's participation: "We very much welcome TOMRA to join the Alliance to End Plastic Waste. Our alliance is growing rapidly, attracting many Influential and innovative member companies join. This will be a broad and influential collective for the modern era of plastic pollution.”
DavidTaylor also added: "TOMRA has developed a variety of innovative technologies for the sorting and recycling of waste plastics, and has taken several practical actions to promote a circular economy for plastics. In addition, TOMRA has also led to changes in consumer behavior. At the same time, TOMRA makes the same-level recycling of plastics possible, enabling many consumer brands to replace virgin materials with high-quality recycled plastics, which not only reduces the demand for petroleum raw materials, but also greatly reduces plastic packaging waste. "
Stefan Ranstrand, President and Chief Executive Officer of TOMRA Group, said: "Faced with increasing plastic waste pollution, we urgently need to increase recycling efforts while creating higher value from recycled plastic waste. We are honored to join End the Plastic Waste Coalition and hope our collective action will achieve the purpose of eliminating plastic pollution."
Mr. Shi Daifeng also pointed out that after years of hard work, we have seen some positive developments. In some markets where plastic recycling is more mature, the recycling rate has reached as high as 98%, and some consumer goods companies are now starting to use 100% recycled materials to make new products. But this is just the beginning, and much more must be done to protect the earth on which we live.
With the improvement of people's living standards and the enhancement of consumption capacity, China is becoming the world's largest producer and consumer of plastics, with a total output of plastic products reaching 75 million tons in 2017. However, relatively speaking, the recycling of waste plastics is far from keeping up, mainly because the collection infrastructure of waste plastics needs to be improved, the scale and automation of the plastic recycling industry is not enough, and the sorting technology needs to be further improved, and it is impossible to achieve the same level regeneration. The result of this is that even if there is a certain recycling capacity, the quality of the recycled material is degraded, and after 1-2 times of recycling, it will become garbage that cannot be reused.
Recently, many cities in my country have begun to implement mandatory sorting and collection of municipal solid waste, which reflects the firm determination of governments at all levels to solve waste pollution and promote resource recycling. As a global leader in sensing-based recycling technology, TOMRA has more than 40 years of rich experience serving the global recycling industry and has developed many advanced innovative technologies. TOMRA's automatic bottle unwinding machine can collect 40 billion empty beverage bottles every year. Its sorting technology can sort mixed waste and recover high-purity renewable materials. This powerful combination of technologies will help my country achieve waste reduction. and efficient resource reuse, and will promote the implementation of circular economy.
