Corporate recycling efforts lag as U.N. seeks treaty on plastic

With diplomats gathered in Geneva this week to try to hammer out a treaty to reduce plastic pollution, major buyers of plastic packaging are behind on their targets to use more recycled content – and some are scaling those goals back.

Consumer brands Coca-Cola and Pepsi have both trimmed targets, BloombergNEF noted in a report released July 31. Both had pledged to use 50% recycled material in their packaging by 2030. Now Coca-Cola is aiming for at least 35% by 2035, while Pepsi intends to meet a minimum of 40% by the same year.

Other well-known food, personal care and cosmetics brands are lagging on their 2025 recycled-content targets, BNEF found. PepsiCo Inc. declined to comment and the Coca-Cola Co. didn’t respond to requests for comment.

One reason for the gap is a lack of material. Even though plastic waste is abundant across the globe, the collection and sorting of trash for recycling remains a primary bottleneck, according to Kirti Vasta, an analyst for BNEF.

“The biggest hurdle is the lack of supply of high-quality recycled plastic, which is stifling the ability of brand owners to achieve their goals,” Vasta said. (In the U.S., the beverage industry itself bears some responsibility for this: It long opposed so-called bottle bills that add a small fee to drinks, which customers can get back when they return the empty bottles.)

The infrastructure is also still ramping up. There were $7.1 billion in investments directed to new plastic recycling projects and bioplastics facilities in 2024, according to BNEF.

Chemical or advanced recycling, a nascent technology, can accept a wider mix of plastic waste than conventional methods, including items that are hard to process like styrofoam, single-use wrapping and straws. The current capacity for the technology is about 700,000 metric tons, according to BNEF, which is concentrated in China, followed by the U.S. ExxonMobil Corp. made a $200 million investment in expanding chemical recycling in the U.S. last year. But announcements of new projects are expected to slow down, Vasta said, potentially making it more difficult for corporations to reach their goals.

International plastic treaty negotiations stalled last year when plastic-producing nations, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, blocked attempts to limit global production. They argued that the focus of a treaty should be on improving trash collection and recycling capacity instead. Critics of plastic recycling say the system is flawed and that focusing on it distracts from reducing the amount of new plastic.

In lieu of a treaty, individual nations have been adopting policies to promote plastic reuse. China’s government last year established a new state-owned enterprise focused on resource recycling. The Canadian government set up a national registry, with mandatory reporting by companies, to track plastic across its life cycle. The UK, meanwhile, will require businesses to contribute more to the cost of recycling their packaging.