Waste

Overview of P&G Efforts

Overview of P&G Efforts

Progress vs. Goals

Goals

Data & Metrics

Data & Metrics

Partnerships

Partnerships

 

Superior packaging plays an essential role in protecting, shipping, and using our products. Our teams of designers, material scientists and innovators work together to create new packaging solutions that delight the consumer and reduce plastic, create transportation efficiencies and reuse materials.

 

At P&G, we take our stewardship obligations for plastics packaging seriously and as we advance our packaging efforts, we are guided by the following principles:
 

We are guided by science and life cycle thinking – recognizing the need to look at lifecycle impacts of material choices to help inform our design decisions

We are guided by the waste management hierarchy and seek first to reduce, reuse, and recycle as part of our materials management process

Collaboration – we acknowledge that the size and scale of the challenges in front of us will require us to collaborate with others to drive impacts at scale
 
 

P&G PERSPECTIVES.

 

Compostable Packaging
​ P&G does not include compostable or biodegradable packaging in our goals. We understand that there are issues with consumer access to facilities that can properly treat compostable packaging and that these materials are potentially contaminants to the established recycling streams for plastics. Our objective is to help enable a circular economy through reuse and recycling of packaging.

 

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)
​ Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for packaging can accelerate progress toward a circular economy and provide support for recycling when optimally designed systems are in place for a given market. P&G has endorsed the Packaging EPR principles in the Consumer Goods Forum’s “Building a Circular Economy for Packaging: A View from the Consumer Goods Industry on Optimal Extended Producer Responsibility.”

 

Definition of “recyclable”
​ P&G considers packaging to be recyclable if there is at-scale collection, sorting, processing, and end markets for the material and format in at least one geography. We do not consider waste to energy and conversion to fuels as suitable end markets to satisfy this definition.
UN Treaty to Address Plastic Pollution
​ P&G believes a binding international treaty to address plastic pollution is a needed and an important step to accelerate global progress on plastic pollution.  P&G signed the Business Call for a UN Treaty on Plastic Pollution and is pleased that the UN has begun treaty negotiations.
As outlined in the Business Call to Action, we believe the treaty should include:

Harmonizing regulatory standards and common definitions across markets
Mandating the development of national targets and action plans
Defining common reporting metrics and methodologies across the plastic value chain
Supporting innovation and infrastructure development in key markets
 
As negotiations proceed, P&G plans to maintain our focus on driving progress toward our plastic goals, which we believe align with the higher-level objectives of a UN Treaty.  These actions include:

Participating in World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Resource Plastic effort to develop a more standard methodology for tracking and reporting plastic usage.
Supporting a number of initiatives to demonstrate effective approaches to reduce plastic leakage into the environment and drive greater circularity, like Circulate Capital, the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, and the Closed Loop Fund.
Innovating to create new solutions to address system-wide challenges and seeking pathways to scale them. This includes efforts like HolyGrail2.0 and a new recycling technology being commercialized by Purecycle.
Driving progress toward our goals of having 100% of our consumer packaging designed to be recyclable or reusable and to reduce our use of virgin petroleum plastic in our consumer packaging by 50%.
 
For more information on our partnerships around the globe to help reduce, reuse, and recycle plastic, please visit,

P&G EFFORTS.

 
Driving greater circularity in plastic packaging is fundamentally a system challenge that will require collaboration across industry, governments, civil society, and academics. As we advance our efforts, we focus on 5 key areas:
 
PACKAGE DESIGN
To deliver progress toward our plastic packaging goals we continue to increase use of recycled plastic, use more lightweight designs, and replace plastic with other renewable materials (such as paper and bio-based plastics).
 
ACCESS TO COLLECTION
Consumers need to have access to collection and recovery systems to enable greater circularity of plastic packaging. In regions of the world that lack adequate waste management systems, we seek to play a role in helping catalyze the development of needed waste management infrastructure. We do this by partnering with others to demonstrate technically and economically feasible approaches that can be scaled by governments, development finance institutions and private equity investment. Key efforts we are supporting include:

​ The Alliance to End Plastic Waste: The AEPW is supported by over 70 companies and is working to find solutions that stop plastic leakage to the environment.
​ Circulate Capital Ocean Fund: $100mm investment fund focused on infrastructure needed in SE Asia where lack of capital for waste infrastructure has been a barrier to stopping plastic leakage.
 
CONSUMER PARTICIPATION
Consumer participation is a critical part of driving increased circularity of plastic packaging and we believe we have a role to play in inspiring consumers to recycle. One way we do that is though clear labeling of packaging. In the U.S. and Canada, we have been supporting the use of the How 2 Recycle Label which is a cross-industry platform to provide consumers consistent information on recyclability of packaging.
 
SEPARATION & RECOVERY TECHNOLOGY
P&G believes there is a significant opportunity for innovation in plastic separation and recovery technology that can improve both the quantity and quality of recovered plastic. By partnering with others, we believe we can play a role in helping catalyze innovation that will drive greater capability in the plastics recycling industry. Key partnerships and efforts include:

 
END MARKETS
Ensuring robust end markets for recycled materials is a critical component of driving circular systems for plastics. The primary role we play in supporting end markets is using recycled materials in our plastic packaging and addressing the demand for high-quality, recycled content to help close the loop. Our engineers are inventing and licensing new recycling processes like VersoVita™ to improve the quality of recycled polypropylene for our products and the industry.

PROGRESS VS. GOALS.

 

2030 Goal FY 23/24 Progress
​ 100% of our consumer packaging will be designed to be recyclable or reusable
 
​ Reduce our use of virgin petroleum plastic in our consumer packaging by 50% per unit of production (vs. 2017 baseline)

​ Maintain zero manufacturing waste to landfill
​ 80% of our consumer packaging is designed to be recyclable or reusable.

​ 21% reduction


​ Achieved and maintained since 2020
 
NOTE: Fiscal year progress for packaging data uses the time period from April 1, 2023 – March 31, 2024
 
ZMWTL Timeline image
 
Since 2007, P&G plants around the world have been on a mission to achieve zero manufacturing waste to landfill. In 2017, we set our sights on making this true for 100% of our manufacturing sites and in 2020 we achieved it. Throughout our journey we have been working to reduce material usage in operations, reuse whenever suitable and find a second life use for all other waste to avoid landfill. Now we are focusing on reducing and eliminating landfill waste in our offices and technical centers.

DATA & METRICS.

Fiscal Year 23/24 Data
 
​ Plastic packaging: 691,000 metric tons
​ Recycled plastic resin: 116,000 metric tons
​ Percent total resin from recycled sources: 17% recycled resin
​ Manufacturing waste diverted from the landfill: 656,000 metric tons
​ Zero manufacturing waste to landfill: Achieved and maintained since 2020

Resin used in our packaging in FY 23/24

Resin Type Percentage
PE 49%
PET 22%
PP 22%
Other 8%

Note: Numbers do not sum to 100% due to rounding

 

NOTE: Fiscal year progress for packaging data uses the time period from April 1, 2023 – March 31, 2024. Absolute numbers above are rounded.
 

PARTNERSHIPS AND PROGRAMS.

 

Collaborating with others to help drive impacts at scale is a key part of our overall strategy. Examples of partnerships and programs we support include:

The AEPW is supported by over 70 companies and is working to find solutions that stop plastic leakage to the environment.
 
More than 160 companies and organizations from the complete packaging value chain have joined forces with the ambitious goal to assess whether a pioneering digital technology can enable better sorting and higher-quality recycling rates for packaging.
 
Under the leadership of WWF, ReSource works with its member companies to maximize, measure, and multiply their impacts on addressing plastic waste.
$100mm investment fund focused on infrastructure needed in SE Asia where lack of capital for waste infrastructure has been a barrier to stopping plastic leakage.
 
 
 
BFA works to provide thought leadership on the responsible sourcing of bioplastics.

ADDITIONAL REFERENCES.

 

P&G has a goal to source 100% of our paper packaging from either
recycled content or 3rd party certified virgin fiber sources.