Perfetti Van Melle joins UK Plastics Pact targeting major improvements on recycling
pic: Perfetti Van Melle
Confectionery group Perfetti Van Melle has become the latest major business from across the confectionery and snacks sector to join the UK Plastics Pact, aiming to drive key change on tackling pollution and improving environmental performance, writes Neill Barston.
The business, which is behind brands including Mentos and Mentos Gum, Fruittella; as well as Chupa Chups lollipops, joins a number of other companies in the sector including Mars, Haribo, General Mills, Unilever and pladis, among many other key businesses for the sector in supporting positive change.
Notably, the pact has stated that it is targeting the removal of single-use plastic, as well as making 100% of plastic packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable, therefore keeping it in the economy in a sustainable manner across the complete value chain of industry.
As its organisers explained, the Pact unites governments, local authorities, NGOs and businesses involved in producing, selling, collecting and reprocessing plastic, to deliver its targets by 2025- which include ensuring 70% of plastics packaging is effectively recycled or composted and 30% average content is recycled across all plastic packaging within the next two years.
Significantly, last year, the UK Plastics Pact saw a positive 84% reduction in problematic and unnecessary single-use plastics since 2018 and noted that recycled content levels have risen from 8.5% in 2018 to 22% in 2021.
Hayley Osborne, Communications and Sustainability Manager at Perfetti Van Melle: “Tackling plastic waste requires concerted global and national level action. Perfetti Van Melle has already taken meaningful measures to reduce plastics in its packaging and eliminating plastic packaging entirely, where possible. “Most recently, we launched an industry-first Paperboard bottle for Mentos Pure Fresh Gum, an innovation which reduced the plastic in this packaging by 93%[3] in one fell swoop. We also replaced the plastic sticks in our world-renowned Chupa Chups lollies with paper sticks in H2 2022, a step which will eliminate around 5k metric tons p.a. of plastic globally over the next three years.
“Our membership of The UK Plastics Pact complements the planned program of goals outlined in our own Reduce, Recycle, Recover, initiative, and will ensure we continue to hold ourselves to the highest standards and benchmarks in pursuit of a more sustainable future.”
