Businesses, NGOs and governments from across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands are uniting today to take an ambitious pledge to eliminate plastic waste from supply chains by 2025.

The ANZPAC Plastics Pact seeks to deal with one of the “most pressing environmental issues facing the planet”, with a lack of action expected to lead to a quadrupling of the amount of plastics in the ocean by 2040.

The new pact commits partners to four clear, actionable targets by 2025: eliminate unnecessary and problematic plastic packaging; ensure 100 per cent of plastic packaging is recyclable, reusable or compostable; increase the current volume of plastic packaging and effectively recycled by at least 25 per cent; and ensure an average of 25 per cent recycled content in plastic packaging across the APAC region.

And it has a number of founding retail partners: namely, Aldi, Coles and Woolworths.

“We recognise the importance of acting now and our pledge to support the ANZPAC Plastics Pact ensures we strive to continually improve in the plastics space and going the extra mile with our goals,” said Aldi Australia director of corporate responsibility Daniel Baker.

Coles’ chief executive of commercial and express Greg Davis  said the partnership will help deliver Coles’ Together to Zero sustainable strategy, in which is hopes to hit net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

“As one of Australia’s largest retailers, Coles understands the importance of working collaboratively to find a more sustainable future for plastic packaging,” Davis said.

“We now have an opportunity to build and shape meaningful change through plastic packaging and move towards a circular plastic economy as a global community.”

The pact has also attracted a number of FMCG and manufacturing partners, such as Arnott’s Group, Asahi Beverages, Coca-Cola South Pacific, Colgate Palmolive, Mondelez, Nestle, PepsiCo, and Unilever.