Packaging targets for your business
The 2025 National Packaging Targets deadline is coming for businesses in Australia. If you haven’t started the shift away from single-use packaging in your supply chain, now is the time.
What are APCO’s 2025 targets?
APCO’s packaging targets, established in 2018, call for a complete and systemic change in the way Australian’s create, collect and recover product packaging.
These targets are voluntary but are supported by the Australian industry and government, aiming to deliver a sustainable approach to packaging. Being proactive now can help future-proof your business.
Luckily for Australian businesses, our compostable pallet wrap is a viable solution to help transition away from single-use packaging in the workplace.
Key targets include ensuring that 100% of packaging is reusable, recyclable and compostable, that 70% of plastic packaging is either recyclable or compostable and the phase out of problematic and unnecessary single-use plastics packaging. The full list of targets can be found here.
What does this mean for you
As a signatory, these requirements apply to you if you make, use, or sell packaging in Australia.
If you’re still using traditional pallet wrap, we encourage you to try our compostable pallet wrap. You can also now find suppliers offering compostable tape, mailers and foodservice packaging at affordable prices.
Falling short of these packaging targets negatively impacts the environment, whether or not you’re a signatory, as they are designed to reduce unnecessary waste and remove plastic from the growing landfill crisis.
Unmet targets will continue to put pressure on landfills, making it crucial to address sooner rather than later in your supply chain.
The role of composting
Carbon building up in our atmosphere and oceans is accelerating climate change at a dangerous pace. On the other hand, our soils desperately need more of it. If we added just 0.4% of organic carbon annually to our soils through composting, it would offset all global greenhouse gases released.
Unfortunately, in Australia, only 13% of plastic materials are actually recycled. According to SBS News, environmentalists in Indonesia report that Australia’s plastic comes to them inside of shipments of paper and cardboard. Some of that plastic is unwanted and discarded, other plastic is burned in local factories’ cement kilns as a cheap source of fuel.
This issue isn’t new, but it highlights an opportunity to reduce our reliance on recycling as the sole solution to the plastic problem.
We support the diversification of end of life options and the APCO targets push for the use of sustainable packaging in businesses. We hope to see less dependence on the recycling system as our only option to reduce business waste going to landfills.
To speak to our sales team about transitioning to our compostable pallet wrap in your supply chain, contact us here.
