Danone, Tetra Pak, Nestlé and Veolia are leading a scheme to reduce plastic waste and recycle more plastic waste.

The 3R initiative plans to create by 2021 tradable plastic ‘credits’ to support recycling projects in developing nations, using the template from US-based not for profit Verra’s system of voluntary carbon credits. Working in the same way as carbon offsets, companies in the scheme could offset plastic use by buying credits from, for example, recycling projects that could provide the raw materials.

The 1R Credit: Represents the environmental service of recovering one tonne of waste from the environment and directing it to an appropriate final destination (landfill, energy recovery).

The 2R Credit: Represents the environmental service of recovering and recycling one tonne of plastic that would otherwise be dumped or left in the environment.

Credits can also be acquired by companies looking to mitigate the portion of their waste footprint that cannot be tackled directly. In turn, waste recovery and recycling projects can use the revenues from credit sales to support and expand their efforts, or be donated to other plastic-related projects.

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