Non-Alcoholic Beverages Industry Applauds National Plastics Summit

The first summit, held in March 2020 in Canberra saw the non-alcoholic beverage sector make significant commitments to invest in establishing reprocessing facilities and integrate recycled content into its products.

“As the peak body representing non-alcoholic beverages nationally, the ABCL welcomes this opportunity to showcase our industry leading commitments to the circular economy, as well as network with like-minded businesses in the foods and FMCG spaces. Our members have been working at rapid speed to implement recycled content in their packaging as well as to invest in recycling infrastructure nationally.” says ABCL CEO Geoff Parker.

“As the first industry in Australia to ensure our products are remade through materials recovery via container deposit schemes (CDS), we look forward to seeing commitments from other industries around how they will recover their materials for reintegration into their own products.

We are thankful to the government for providing such a forum, ensuring words translate into action as we all work to be responsible stewards. We believe the National Packaging Targets are essential to guaranteeing a sustainable future for Australia from a jobs, economic, and environmental perspective”.

In addition to beverage industry commitments to ensure recovery of our materials, it is essential that the waste and recycling industry processes these materials to the highest “food-grade” standard. Without a suitable supply of food grade recycled material available for purchase within Australia, businesses will be forced to purchase from overseas. This will raise the everyday price of products and represent a missed opportunity for domestic circular economy job growth.

The ABCL participates in a wide suite of sustainability initiatives including working with states to establish and run their container deposit schemes, advocating for caps collection in CDS and kerbside nationally, advocating for common sense revisions to on pack recycling messaging through harmonisation of the Australasian Recycling Logo and CDS, participating in a number of national and international consultation groups, and assisting beverage companies achieve their sustainability goals. We are a proud member of APCO and a signatory to the ANZPAC Plastics Pact.