Ackowledging that national policy and legislation can play a major role in enabling the acceleration of reuse systems, the World Economic Forum (WEF) believes policy on reuse is still nascent for most countries, and says governments are at different levels of maturity, so more needs to be done, citing Australia as a great example to follow.
But, the WEC said that although the shift towards reuse is still in its early stages, there is a growing ambition from the public and the private sector to advance reusable packaging for consumer goods as an alternative to single-use.
“Even vastly improved recycling rates would not sufficiently curb the plastic waste crisis. Reusable packaging for consumer goods, which is designed to be used several times, holds the key to achieving a world free of plastic waste,” said the WEC.
“Governments acknowledge that reuse should be an integral part of their waste reduction strategy, but have not set specific targets on reuse. Only a minority has adopted national legislation or policies on reuse.”
On the local front, the WEC has highlighted Australia as one of forward-looking governments in the Asia-Pacific region, along with France for the European sector, and Chile for the Americas.
For the WEC, four primary actors in the reuse ecosystem are needed to accelerate early momentum in legislation and policy – national governments, municipalities, non-profit organisations, and businesses.
The WEC said that through governments, we have an opportunity to engage in open dialogue with each other to share key learnings and insights on the implementation of national reuse policy; municipalities and non-profit organisations are needed to collaborate with national governments on reuse policy; while businesses can additionally support policymakers by serving as testing grounds to better understand the structures needed for reuse solutions.
“It is critical for national governments to announce clear paths and goals that set signals for the private sector on what packaging changes and investments they must make in the long term,” the WEC further explained.
“Public-private coordination on infrastructure standards is also required to prevent a plethora of proprietary systems, as is currently the case with recycling systems.
“The most appropriate policy interventions for each government will depend on the market maturity of reuse. Governments have multiple types of policy tools at their disposal they can deploy – ranging from public awareness campaigns, to incentives/disincentives like deposit return systems, to prescriptive regulation and laws with legally binding targets.”
The WEF highlighted the recycling drive in Australia, which it said should be an example to other countries on how to move forward.
“Australia has adopted a collaboration model with Asia-Pacific and has organisations like the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation in place, which is a non-profit tasked with delivering industry-led packaging targets endorsed by multiple governments,” the WEC highlighted.
“Australia has the 2025 National Packaging Targets in place, which aims to phase out single-use plastic packaging and ensure that all packaging is reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.
“APCO fulfils a co-regulatory role and collaborates with government and industry on circular packaging design, insight sharing, and expanding markets.
“Given the nascent stage of national reuse legislation and policy, these first-mover approaches serve as examples for other countries to develop their strategies on reuse.”
