Climate change ministry, CoRe alliance host meeting on recycling

Ministry of Climate Change (MoCC) and CoRe (Collect and Recycle), an alliance of leading food and packaging companies, recyclers and non-governmental organisations hosted a stakeholder convening to encourage dialogue regarding the shared challenges of packaging waste and collection mechanism in the country. Talking about the session Malik Amin Aslam, Special Assistant to Prime Minister for Climate Change said, “We have to engage stakeholders to generate a debate around the creation of a circular economy, with a goal to identify right policy measures to enable formal solid waste management.”

He stressed that it was imperative “to help inform a national strategy in coming years” by identifying key issues, challenges and opportunities unique to packaging waste.

Highlighting the importance of the convening, Waqar Ahmad, CEO CoRe alliance said, “The convening has allowed us to identify potential challenges of packaging waste and collection mechanism, drive performance improvements and ultimately strengthen collective action in this regard.”

Talking about the CoRe’s inception, he said, “CoRe is the first ever packaging alliance created with a mission to eliminate packaging waste by enabling formal collection and recycling.

It envisions the creation of a circular economy by reducing packaging footprint and encouraging sustainable and innovative practices.” MoCC Joint Secretary Syed Mujtaba Hussain while applauding the efforts of CoRe alliance said, “The convening has helped identify potential ideas and partnerships to work towards finding solutions to this complex challenge of plastic waste.” CoRe’s goals are to improve post-consumer usage, collection and recycling of packaging waste to help become waste neutral. CoRe’s commitment is to make 100% of packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025.

CoRe is comprised of organisations such as Coca-Cola, Ecolean, FrieslandCampina, Green Earth Recycling, METRO, Nestlé, Novatex, Packages Ltd, PepsiCo, SPEL, TetraPak, Unilever along with non- government organizations’ Sustainable Policy Development Institute (SDPI), UNDP and WWF.