The footnote to 2024 was uncertainty, after the final round of talks on a global treaty to curb plastics pollution ended in stalemate.
Despite the lack of consensus among member states at the meeting, held in Busan, South Korea, agreement was made to resume talks again later this year, with a ‘chair’s text’ serving as the starting point for negotiations.
Reaction from environmental groups was mixed, with the World Wildlife Fund for Nature calling on countries to urgently adopt a treaty ‘that people and nature need’. Zero Waste Europe, meanwhile, suggested the outcome of the talks was both a success and a failure, while Greenpeace urged the ‘ambitious majority’ to overcome the obstruction of a few and deliver an effective agreement.
There were, at least, plenty of agreements made between businesses involved in plastics packaging throughout December. Leading the way was Amcor’s acquisition of US-based Berry Global in an $8.43 billion deal that will create a global packaging giant across the consumer and healthcare sectors.
In another shake up of the North American market, Novolex announced it is to acquire fellow US packaging firm Pactiv Evergreen for $6.7bn, taking the company into private ownership.
Further deals followed across the pond, with KHS Group boosting its bottle-handling expertise by acquiring a majority share in Austrian conveying specialist Tyrolon-Schulnig; Italian packaging firm Carton Pack purchasing Clifton Packaging Group, a UK-based manufacturer of flexible food packaging; and Italian firm Guala Closures buying the remaining 30 per cent stake in Guala Closures Bulgaria, having initially purchased a 70 per cent share in 2010.
Berlin Packaging, meanwhile, is continuing to increase its presence in Europe after entering a definitive agreement to acquire Rixius, a rigid packaging specialist based in Germany.
While some businesses take the acquisition route, others opt to invest in their own facilities. In Asia, TriMas opened a 225,000 sq ft packaging plant in Haining, China, following a previous decision to rationalise two manufacturing facilities into one new facility. And extrusion machinery maker Reifenhäuser has further expanded its global sales and service support network with the opening of an Asia-Pacific head office in Bangkok, Thailand.
Investments also continue to be made to improve circularity, with ExxonMobil planning to spend $200 million at its US sites in Baytown and Beaumont, Texas, to expand its global chemical recycling capacity. Silicone-based materials producer Elkem has opened a chemical recycling pilot plant in France for the same reason.
The capacity announcements came at the same time as publishing of a report that found that the chemical industry is to shift dramatically away from fossil-based feedstock by 2050. Biomass, carbon capture and utilisation, and recycling are likely to make up the significant majority in 25 years, the Nova-Institute report, on behalf of the Renewable Carbon Initiative, claimed.
Those behind a report released by European Bioplastics at its annual conference in Berlin, Germany, no doubt agree with this view, after declaring that global bioplastics production capacity is set to grow by more than 130 per cent between now and 2029.
The path to circularity might not be plain sailing just yet, however, after Plastics Europe revealed that production of mechanically recycled plastics in the EU dropped for the first time in 2023. Europe’s eroding competitiveness threatens industry’s circular plastics transition and the viability of the European plastics value chain, the trade body warned.
There is also turbulence in the US recycling market, with fears that two key pieces of legislation will be overlooked by the incoming Trump Administration. EcoEnclose chief executive Saloni Doshi has urged the Biden Administration to expedite the legislation, which seeks to improve rural recycling and composting access, boost data collection, and inject funding into improving recycling infrastructure, ahead of Trump’s inauguration.
Perhaps legislators can draw inspiration from environmental consultancy Systemiq, which revealed a plan that it claims can reduce waste and cut emissions from PET packaging, while creating 46,000 US jobs by 2040. The study advocates reducing avoidable material use, scaling packaging reuse and the expansion of recycling, both mechanically and by depolymerisation.
And finally…
A strange packaging trend emerged in 2024 through the unlikely means of a second-hand shopping app. Users of Vinted, which enables people to buy and sell used clothing, have been taking the anti-waste ethos to the extreme by coming up with increasingly novel ways to package their sold items. ‘Sustainability statement’ examples include a T-shirt wrapped in a McCain oven fries bag, a pair of glasses encased in a plastics bottle, and a hat ensconced in an apple juice carton. While such inventive reuse applications have to be applauded, the wrapping of a pair of earrings in a sanitary towel bag might have taken things a little too far. Period.
Noli Dinkovski
