EVANSVILLE - Berry Global Group has signed the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment to eliminate plastic pollution at its source, which is led by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, in collaboration with UN Environment.

Berry’s involvement with the Global Commitment is complementary to its efforts with the Alliance to End Plastic Waste and furthers the company’s commitments to its recently announced sustainability strategy, Impact 2025.

“At Berry, we stand behind the power of plastics and are placing a priority on creating a more sustainable future. We are innovating our products to encourage recyclability, use of recycled content, and lightweighting. In conjunction with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, we are proud to accelerate the transition towards a circular economy,” said Tom Salmon, Berry Chairman and CEO.

By signing the Global Commitment, Berry has pledged to take action to eliminate problematic or unnecessary plastic packaging. The company says it has been developing recyclable alternatives to replace non-recyclable packaging for many years and will continue to develop widely recyclable packaging to replace less recyclable alternatives.

In the near term, Berry says it is also committing to develop a widely recyclable alternative for each of its polystyrene product lines by the end of 2020 which is complementary to Berry’s history of lightweighting. Lightweighting is a process of design and engineering improvements that reduce the overall amount of plastic needed to deliver performance and protective properties of a product.

Further commitments include ensuring 100 per cent of plastic packaging is to be reusable, recyclable, or compostable; a target of 10 per cent post-consumer recycled content across all plastic packaging used; and action to increase reusable packaging.