MOSCOW (MRC) -- Unilever North America is investing USD15 million in Closed Loop Partners’ Leadership Fund to help recycle an estimated 60,000 metric tons of U.S. plastic packaging waste annually by 2025, said Canplastics.
The investment, announced on March 16, is part of the Englewood Cliffs, N.J.-based company’s plan to collect and process more plastic packaging than it sells by 2025. Closed Loop Partners’ Leadership Fund is a private equity fund that acquires and grows companies across the value chain working to increase recycling.
"We believe plastics’ place is inside the circular economy where it is reused, and not in the environment," said Fabian Garcia, president of Unilever North America. Unilever’s goal to collect and process more plastic packaging than it sells is a part of its ambitious set of “Waste-Free World” commitments. Those global commitments include halving use of virgin plastic; ensuring all of its plastic packaging is reusable, recyclable or compostable; and using at least 25 per cent recycled plastic in its packaging.
Half of the 118,000 metric tons of plastic packaging used by Unilever North America is post-consumer resin (PCR) plastic. Many of its brands, including Dove, Hellmann’s, and Seventh Generation, already use 100 per cent PCR bottles. The investment in Closed Loop Partners’ Leadership Fund will help secure additional PCR plastic supply for Unilever brands and increase access to recycled plastic feedstock processed by the companies the Fund invests in.
As per MRC, SABIC, a global leader in the chemicals industry, announced that the company has been collaborating with Unilever and Greiner Packaging in the development of an innovative new container using SABIC PP FLOWPACT FPC45 certified circular impact polypropylene (PP) from its TRUCIRCLE portfolio.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's PP shipments to the Russian market reached 141,870 tonnes in January 2021 versus 123,520 tonnes a year earlier. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.
Unilever’s Canadian operation, Unilever Canada, is headquartered in Toronto.
MRC