INDIANAPOLIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Today, Closure Systems International (CSI) has joined the U.S. Plastics Pact (U.S. Pact), a collaborative, solutions-driven initiative rooted in four ambitious goals intended to drive significant systems change by unifying diverse cross-sector approaches, setting a national strategy, and creating scalable solutions to create a path forward toward a circular economy for plastics in the United States by 2025. The first North American Pact of its kind, the U.S. Pact is a collaboration led by The Recycling Partnership, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
As part of the U.S. Pact, Activators like CSI recognize that significant, system wide change is imperative to realize a circular economy for plastics. As such, the U.S. Pact is convening more than 70 brands, retailers, NGOs, and government agencies across the plastics value chain to bring one voice to U.S. packaging through coordinated initiatives and innovative solutions for rethinking products, packaging, and business models.
“CSI is excited to activate as a partner alongside the U.S. Plastics Pact and other fellow Activators that share the same desire to work toward creating a circular economy for plastics. We are excited to take a proactive approach in helping to mitigate the plastic waste challenge we all face”.
“CSI incorporates sustainable closure design and material science expertise to ensure customers stay ahead of legislation, market trends, and consumer demands. Our robust portfolio of HDPE closures that include PCR content was developed with circularity and recyclability in mind and we look forward to a long-standing partnership with the U.S. Plastics Pact and its fellow Activators.” – Richard Burt, Vice President of Business Development at CSI.
As an Activator of the U.S. Plastics Pact, CSI has agreed to collectively deliver against these four ambitious goals:
- Define a list of packaging to be designated as problematic or unnecessary by 2021 and take measures to eliminate them by 2025.
- By 2025, all plastic packaging is 100% reusable, recyclable, or compostable.
- By 2025, undertake ambitious actions to effectively recycle or compost 50% of plastic packaging.
- By 2025, the average recycled content or responsibly sourced bio-based content in plastic packaging will be 30%.
While the U.S. Pact is complementary to and follows the ambitious precedents set by the existing global network of Plastic Pacts, it will be tailored to meet the unique needs and challenges of the U.S. market. The U.S. Pact will reflect national priorities and realities, while still propelling the nation closer to other developed nations in its management of plastic waste.
“Together through the U.S. Plastics Pact, we will ignite system change to accelerate progress toward a circular economy,” says Emily Tipaldo, Executive Director of the U.S. Plastics Pact. “The U.S. Pact will accelerate system wide change by inspiring and supporting upstream innovation through a coordinated national strategy, creating a unified framework and enabling members to accelerate progress toward our ambitious 2025 sustainability goals. Members’ full participation will be vital to reaching our shared goals.”
Achieving this vision will require new levels of accountability from all facets of the plastics supply chain. The U.S. Pact emphasizes measurable change and as such, CSI is committed to transparent, annual reporting, guided by WWF’s ReSource: Plastic Footprint Tracker, which will be used to document annual progress against our four goals. The first task of the members of the U.S. Plastics Pact will be to establish a “roadmap” in 2021 to identify key milestones and national solutions to achieving the U.S. targets and realize a circular economy in which plastic never becomes waste.
Product stewardship is one of the three core components of CSI’s sustainability approach, with extensive accomplishments made to date. CSI utilizes a comprehensive lifecycle view and considers circular principles in the research and development process to produce a superior closure that strives to harmonize sustainability, quality, and cost. Highlights of sustainable features achieved across the CSI closure product lifecycle include:
Design & Raw Materials
- Materials Reduction
- Reduced closure diameter and neck finish which saves resin for bottle and closure
- Reduced material by eliminating liner (one-piece vs two-piece closures) and part weight reduction
- Recycled Materials
- CSI’s PolyCycle® PCR Resin uses a proprietary process to ensure the organoleptic performance of our closures is equal to that of virgin resin and outperforms standard PCR
- Capable of 40% + content for food grade and 100% non-food grade applications
- Bio feedstock
- Offer plant-based resins, including 100% plant-based closures
Distribution
- Shipping and transportation packaging
- Up to 40% freight improvement due to packaging efficiencies through stacking
Product Use
- Developing next generation flip top offerings which ensures closure stays with bottle for recycling
- Developed manufacturing-friendly, consumer-friendly tethered closure which assures closures are recycled with bottles
Disposal / Recovery
- Closures are 100% recyclable
About CSI
Closure Systems International Inc. (CSI) is a global leader in designing and manufacturing innovative closures for a wide range of applications in consumer and industrial markets. In addition to high quality closures and capping equipment, CSI provides unparalleled customer and technical services for high-speed application systems. Major categories served include carbonated soft drinks, bottled water, juices, isotonics, teas, adult beverages, dairy, foods, pharmaceutical and automotive fluids.
CSI’s cutting-edge closure solutions help customers maximize profits by increasing the marketability of their brands and optimizing their total cost of operations. From reducing the impact of manufacturing operations to an industry-leading suite of sustainable closure profiles, CSI’s sustainability expertise and sustainable product offerings ensure customers stay on top of market trends and consumer demands.
CSI is headquartered in Indianapolis, IN, and produces 50+ billion closures annually across its 9 manufacturing sites. For more information, visit CSI’s website at www.csiclosures.com.
About The Recycling Partnership
The Recycling Partnership is a national nonprofit organization that leverages corporate partner funding to transform recycling for good in states, cities, and communities nationwide. As the leading organization in the country that engages the full recycling supply chain from the corporations that manufacture products and packaging to local governments charged with recycling to industry end markets, haulers, material recovery facilities, and converters, The Recycling Partnership positively impacts recycling at every step in the process. Since 2014, the nonprofit change agent diverted 230 million pounds of new recyclables from landfills, saved 465 million gallons of water, avoided more than 250,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases, and drove significant reductions in targeted contamination rates. Learn more at www.recyclingpartnership.org
About World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
WWF is one of the world’s leading conservation organizations, working in nearly 100 countries for over half a century to help people and nature thrive. With the support of more than 5 million members worldwide, WWF is dedicated to delivering science-based solutions to preserve the diversity and abundance of life on Earth, halt the degradation of the environment and combat the climate crisis. Visit www.worldwildlife.org to learn more and keep up with the latest sustainability news by following @WWFBetterBiz on Twitter and signing up for our newsletter and news alerts here.
About The Ellen MacArthur Foundation
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation was launched in 2010 with the aim of accelerating the transition to the circular economy. Since its creation, the charity has emerged as a global thought leader, putting the circular economy on the agenda of decision-makers around the world. The charity’s work focuses on seven key areas: insight and analysis; business; institutions, governments, and cities; systemic initiatives; circular design; learning; and communications.
Further information: www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org | @circulareconomy
About The New Plastics Economy and The Plastics Pact
Since 2016, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy initiative has rallied businesses and governments behind a positive vision of a circular economy for plastic. Its 2016 and 2017 New Plastics Economy reports captured worldwide headlines, revealing the financial and environmental costs of waste plastic and pollution.
The Plastics Pact is a global network of initiatives that brings together all key stakeholders at the national or regional level behind a common vision with a concrete set of ambitious local targets. It builds a unique platform to exchange learnings and best practices across regions to accelerate the transition to a circular economy for plastic – a New Plastics Economy – in which it never becomes waste or pollution.
Further information: www.newplasticseconomy.org | @circulareconomy
Contacts
Richard Burt
Vice President, Business Development
Richard.Burt@csiclosures.com