F&B Packaging May Cause More Ocean Plastic Than Fish By 2050

Food & Beverage companies are facing challenges meeting their recycled packaging commitments.

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In “The Graduate,” Benjamin Braddock, back from school, is told the secret of the future in one word. “Plastics.” At the time the 1967 movie was made, plastic truly seemed like the shape of the future and the solution to so many problems. Today, many F&B companies think this widely used solution has turned into a problem. According to the World Economic Forum, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050.

Amid a tidal wave of plastic blanketing the world, many F&B companies are not only seeking ways to reduce the amount of new plastic used in packaging but reducing their goals as well.

Walmart recently said it doesn’t expect it will reach its recycled content goals this year. “Increased demand has led to a global shortage of recycled materials,” according to Walmart’s latest ESG report, which said this shortage is making it difficult to source “quantities and at price points that support our packaging goals and everyday low prices.”

The company said, “without a breakthrough in the cost and availability of recycled content,” it doesn’t anticipate reaching its goal of 100% recyclable, reusable, or industrially compostable private label product packaging by the end of this year. At the end of last year, they had reached a little more than 60% of that goal.

Shortfalls and Shifting Timelines

In May, Walmart, along with Nestlé, Mars, and Mondelēz, left the U.S. Plastics Pact, in which companies initially agreed to abide by recycled packaging pledges of 100% recyclable, reusable, or compostable packaging and 30% recycled by this year. Even that group has basically pushed back those goals to 2030.

Google’s Sustainability Strategy Lead recently called these initial goals “ambitious,” adding that despite progress, there are “inherent systemic challenges.”

PepsiCo also revised its PepsiCo Positive plan, dropping their specific target for recycled content, while still pushing for recyclable packaging.

Global Regulation Reactions

And regulations are impacting recycled plastic’s use in F&B packaging around the world. Sustainability Magazine said in 2023 India began allowing recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate) for beverages, later adding food. China doesn’t allow recycled PET packaging for foods, while the FDA helps regulate it in the United States, according to the magazine.

Meanwhile, Coca-Cola said in 2024 that 99% of its consumer packaging was recyclable, up from 90%, and recycled content in its primary packaging rose globally to 28%.

“The collection and recycling of beverage packaging remain challenging, as every state and country has unique systems, infrastructure, regulatory environments and sets of consumer behaviors,” PackagingDive reported Coca-Cola had indicated. “Collective action is needed to support packaging collection infrastructure and policies.”

Corporate Collaboration

Many F&B giants formed their own group, the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Leadership, including Mondelēz, Mars, Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Ikea, Keurig, Dr. Pepper, Kraft Heinz, PepsiCo, and others.

“A circular economy for packaging is built on the principles of resource efficiency and a low-carbon footprint,” according to EPR Leadership. “We start with the reduction of packaging material and reusable packaging wherever possible.”

EPR includes a more proactive role in recycling, as well as affordable access to recycled materials. But the group, at least so far, seems to be largely (if not entirely) staying away from specific percentage targets for recycling.

About 90% of 2025 sustainable packaging goals won’t be met this year, as a green wave turns into a gray wave amid doubt, according to consulting and research firm Gartner.

“We saw quite a few organizations dial back their goals last year and the beginning of this year, and it looks like we’re on that track that most of the goals set for 2025 won’t be delivered by the end of this year,” John Blake, senior director analyst in Gartner’s supply chain practice, told PackagingDive.

About three quarters of companies with voluntarily sustainable packaging targets will drop goals by 2028 and focus more on legislative guidelines, according to Gartner.

A Problem with Promises

Amid plastic backlash, some organizations are filing lawsuits over sustainable claims. The Earth Island Institute and Plastic Pollution Coalition settled with Danone Waters of America over false advertising regarding Evian branded plastic water bottles’ recyclability and use of recycled plastic.

Danone denied the claims but agreed to set aside funds to reduce plastic packaging or find alternatives for Evian bottles in the United States, according to those groups.

The NLPC said even if Walmart uses materials that are “recyclable,” “the vast majority of such waste ends up incinerated, exported or in landfills.” And it called on Walmart to “re-examine its plastic production and packaging policies.”

Green Century Capital Management’s plastics proposal sought to prompt Walmart to publish a new report on how to increase “its sustainable packaging efforts by reducing plastic packaging” and called for them to remove “misleading recyclability claims.”

“There is broad consensus among Walmart customers and the broader public that excessive packaging or the wrong kind of packaging is problematic,” Walmart wrote in response to these plastics proposals, “leading to poor customer experience, unnecessary cost, potential frustration over management and disposal, and needless waste.”

Sustainable Solutions on the Horizon?

Walmart said its (recycled) rubber really is hitting the road: The company said since 2020 it reduced the annual weight of single-use plastic bags 21% across North America and sought to “right size e-commerce packaging.”

The company said it has been replacing “hard-to-recycle materials with more recyclable materials,” ditching foam for paper-based packaging.

Walmart said at the end of 2023, 81% of private brand plastic packaging was designed for recycling and 68% was recyclable, reusable, or industrially compostable.

Walmart argues that “recyclable, reusable, or industrially compostable materials do not currently exist to fulfill all necessary uses, particularly with food.”

The company gives suppliers a Sustainable Packaging Playbook and launched its “Finding Actionable Solutions for Trial” program to identify innovations and best practices.

Walmart also provides in-store plastic bag and stretch film collection bins across the United States. So, the debate goes on as to what’s possible and how to do it. These days, the scene with Benjamin Braddock seems to show how perception, as well as the times, can so drastically change. The world needs fish in the ocean — not plastic.