As all global consumers know, plastic has become an essential part of modern life, but its widespread use has led to a growing waste crisis that our current systems can’t handle. Every year, hundreds of millions of tonnes of plastic end up in landfills and oceans, where they take centuries to break down, threatening wildlife and ecosystems. While some progress has been made in reducing plastic use and improving recycling, inconsistent infrastructure and reliance on single-use products continue to make the challenge difficult to solve at scale.
Tackling this global problem demands collaboration, creativity, and commitment across the entire value chain of a variety of sectors. With this in mind, Xynteo recently met business leaders from the plastic ecosystem at New York Climate Week to understand how they can rethink our utilisation of plastic, highlighting five key strategies: optimising plastic use, exploring innovative alternatives, improving recycling, shifting consumer behaviour, and scaling sustainable solutions. Each lever, applied systemically, can help reduce the environmental footprint of plastic and shape waste management on a global scale.
Read on for a breakdown of each, with real-world examples of how the future is shaping up, now.
Lever 1: Use plastic more efficiently to reduce overall consumption
Reducing unnecessary plastic use across supply chains is one of the simplest ways to cut down waste, and also fundamentally address the root cause of the problem. Every step in the process—from design to disposal—offers opportunities to eliminate unnecessary single-use plastic, rethink packaging design, and reduce the overall volume of plastic. Business leaders noted that while some companies have made progress, voluntary initiatives alone can’t provide a market-wide solution—real progress requires regulation that sets reduction targets and incentivises new consumption models, creating a level playing field for producers and users of plastic. This is particularly pressing for high-convenience products, such as prepared foods, which face strong consumer pull. Compounding this is the importance of setting nuanced corporate reduction targets that realistically take into account local market conditions and where in the value chain a company is situated. Waste reduction initiatives should ultimately drive systemic change in the market, and thus should be targeted to wherever in the value chain impact can be best felt.
For example, Nestlé has committed to reducing its use of virgin plastic by 33% by 2025, largely by redesigning packaging and eliminating single-use plastics, while Lego aims to remove fossil fuels from its bricks by 2032.
When businesses such as Nestlé and Lego focus on reducing plastic, it establishes a standard across the supply chain and raises the bar on what consumers expect from retailers, encouraging both competitors and suppliers to follow suit.
Lever 2: Increase utilisation of lower-carbon and waste-reducing plastic alternatives
For many single-use items, switching to alternatives—such as biodegradable materials or plant-based plastics—can offer a viable alternative to traditional virgin plastic. Fully degradable materials such as seaweed-based packaging can breaks down naturally, but importantly, these materials often require unique storage or distribution conditions, which can potentially limit the universality of their use. When it comes to plant-based plastics, materials are degradable in some cases but not in others. In the latter case, they are chemically identical to traditional counterparts, meaning they have good material properties as well as the existing downsides of such plastic. It is important that producers and users make accurate claims about their plastics, to avoid misleading consumers and encourage genuine innovation.
A greater deployment of such plastic alternatives can be achieved by continuing to bridge the gap between them and virgin fossil fuel plastics, in terms of their durability and cost-efficiency. Policy can also support these efforts with grants and incentives that help bring these materials further into the mainstream market.
Notpla, a London-based startup, has developed degradable (and edible) seaweed-based packaging designed to replace single-use plastic for items such as food containers and condiments. With over 10 million single-use plastic items already replaced, Notpla is showing that natural packaging alternatives are feasible—and increasingly scalable.
When businesses adopt bio-based and biodegradable materials, it reduces the environmental burden of single-use plastics. These materials naturally decompose, cutting down on long-term waste and supporting ecosystem health, especially in heavily impacted areas like our oceans.
Lever 3: Create financially and socially inclusive recycling infrastructure
Recycling in many regions is inconsistent, with standards that vary not only by state but sometimes even by neighbourhood. It’s a complex system that can confuse consumers and complicates waste management. Leaders we spoke to emphasised that to make recycling effective, it needs to be unified, streamlined, and scaled. It is critical that companies design products with recyclability in mind, ensuring that even if packaging is complex, it can still be processed easily.
Public-private partnerships are key to scaling recycling initiatives because they bring together the strengths of both sectors to tackle infrastructure gaps, funding challenges, and can integrate both formal and informal waste workers. Governments often provide the regulatory framework and incentives, while private companies contribute expertise, innovation, and investment in advanced recycling technologies. By working together, these partnerships can expand waste collection systems, improve recycling infrastructure, and make programmes more accessible to communities. This is particular important for food-grade post-consumer recycled content (PCR) of which there is limited demand.
Such approaches accelerate the development of scalable, sustainable recycling solutions, as seen in initiatives like India’s Waste No More initiative, which integrates informal waste workers and community-driven models to expand recycling at a local level. Impact investors Aavishkaar Capital have also helped Nepra Resource Management to support more than 1,700 waste pickers collect over 500 tons per day of dry waste by taking a similar approach.
A more efficient and consistent recycling system helps keep valuable materials in the economy and reduces the volume of waste entering landfills and oceans. By investing in recycling infrastructure, businesses and governments can work together to create a circular plastic economy.
Lever 4: Shift consumer behaviour toward reuse models
With the full lifecycle carbon and resource impact of a plastic in mind, the use of more durable products that last for multiple use cycles is often a better environmental choice than single use products. Such a model, typically deployed in the form of packaging, is challenging to deliver for two reasons. First, scale is required for financial durability, with the majority of successful models catering for larger-scale industry applications. Second, consumers are often hesitant to adopt this new buying model, given the ease and accessibility associated with single-use packaging models. If delivered successfully, both plastic use and waste leakage can be reduced, if packaging is return to the producer at the end of the product lifecycle.
Many businesses we spoke to agreed that to make a shift toward more mainstream adoption of reusable packaging, such a choice needs to be convenient and accessible to consumers as part of their existing purchasing behaviour. Incentives – or penalties – can also be deployed to make it more rewarding to choose reusable packaging over single use and can help customers join brands on the journey towards reuse models where suitable for the product. This is particularly important in regions where a rising middle class is currently driving up single-use plastic consumption.
TerraCycle’s Loop programme partners with major brands to offer reusable packaging that consumers can return after use. By paying a small deposit, consumers can get products in durable packaging that is cleaned, refilled, and reused. Loop’s model delivered in partnership with leading online and bricks and mortar retailers has made it easier for people to cut down on single-use plastic without sacrificing convenience.
When consumers are incentivised, with minimal barriers, to choose reusable and recyclable packaging, it reduces demand for single-use plastic. Over time, this creates a culture of responsibility around waste, where sustainable packaging becomes a standard, not an exception.
Lever 5: Scale solutions with targeted funding and industry collaboration
Underlying each of these solutions is the need for funding and scaling activities, not only from investors and leading corporates, but also from government-backed grants and incentives. Leading brands can also collaborate with emerging solutions to propagate uptake of innovative materials and business models, while impact investing and public-private partnerships can help ensure that promising solutions reach a meaningful scale while ensuring the valuable integration of communities.
For example, Closed Loop Partners, a U.S.-based investment firm, focuses on building the circular economy through its Circular Plastics Fund. The fund supports companies that develop sustainable packaging, advanced recycling, and waste management solutions. By providing resources and expertise, Closed Loop Partners enables businesses to scale up innovations and meet sustainability goals.
With the right financial support, sustainable projects can expand to new markets and industries, driving long-term change. These investments make it possible to develop the infrastructure needed for a plastic-free future and to create a circular economy that reuses materials instead of discarding them.
Building a sustainable plastic future together
Turning the tide on plastic waste will require all actors in the system to play their part, from consumers to policymakers to businesses. By focusing on these five strategies – more efficient plastic use, innovative alternatives, improved recycling, consumer-driven reuse, and scalable financing and innovation — we can create a global plastic economy that works sustainably and responsibly.
For more information on how Xynteo helps businesses to collaborate and drive forward sectoral and systems-wide shifts such as this, read more about our coalitions and programmes.
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