The announcement, made by Associate Minister for the Environment, Eugenie Sage, means that more waste is diverted from landfill, generating revenue to be used towards resource recovery and waste minimisation. It will also improve the collection of waste data to better inform decision making on how to manage waste.

Pact Group Managing Director and CEO, Mr Sanjay Dayal, said “This announcement means that New Zealand is one step closer to achieving our shared goal of developing a self-sustained circular economy. It’s important that we are all accountable for our own waste, the materials we produce are recyclable and that we have a strong local recycling infrastructure to process them. This not only protects the environment but also the New Zealand economy for generations to come. We thank the Government for its leadership and look forward to working closely with them to help bring this to life.”

Pact Group has previously received Government funding for a number of initiatives based in New Zealand, which promote circular economy solutions that will deliver local jobs, bolster the domestic manufacturing industry and deliver smarter solutions for plastic waste and recycled packaging.

In 2018 Astron Sustainability, a division of Pact Group, introduced new infrastructure and capability to its Auckland plant to process challenging plastics which were previously shipped offshore.

In 2019 Pact Group was the recipient of funding as part of the New Zealand Government’s Waste Minimisation Fund (WMF) which means it now has the capability to use up to 100% of locally sourced recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate (rPET) in food grade packaging. The funding will allow Pact Group to produce a 100% rPET food packaging offering including meat trays, bakery trays, deli contains and more.

These initiatives sit within Pact Group’s aspirational targets set as part of its 2025 End of Waste Strategy:

• By 2025 Pact Group will eliminate all non-recyclable packaging that it produces.
• By 2025 Pact Group will have solutions to reduce, reuse and recycle all single use secondary packaging in supermarkets.
• By 2025 Pact Group will offer 30 per cent recycled content across its packaging portfolio.