Scale recycled content in plastic packaging

Submitted through the COP31 Sustainable Transformation Awards · SKD Türkiye (WBCSD Global Network Partner)

Unilever Sanayi ve Ticaret Türk A.Ş. is a consumer goods manufacturer in Türkiye with more than 1,000 employees, supplying home care, personal care and food categories.

Packaging is the company's principal plastic exposure. Before 2021 the use of recycled material in its packaging was limited, so the plastic footprint was met almost entirely with virgin resin. This creates dependence on primary plastic supply and contributes to plastic leaving the economy and entering the environment.

The commercial pressure is regulatory as well as reputational. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes and recycled-content mandates are tightening, and consumer expectation is moving in the same direction. The programme was nonetheless started voluntarily in 2021, ahead of any legal requirement.

Location of the initiative: Türkiye

Since 2021 the company has been substituting post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic for virgin resin across its packaging. The work extends beyond a material swap: product design, the supply chain and the pack itself were reworked end to end.

Volumes scaled progressively rather than in a single step, moving from 466 tonnes of PCR in 2021 to 731 tonnes in 2022, 1,278 tonnes in 2023, 1,685 tonnes in 2024 and 3,736 tonnes in 2025, approximately eight times the 2021 volume. The share of PCR in packaging reached 11% in 2025, compared with 5% in 2024.

Home care, which covers high-volume detergent and household cleaning formats, reached a 16% PCR share and serves as the template for the other business groups. Conversion is run category by category, so each business group carries its own recycled-content target rather than relying on a central team.

Figure 1: The post-consumer recycled plastic supply chain, from waste collection, sorting and resin production through quality qualification and packaging manufacturing to consumer use

Figure 2: Post-consumer recycled plastic used in packaging by year, 2021 to 2025: from 466 tonnes to 3,736 tonnes, an eightfold increase

Sustainability Impact

Climate

This initiative targets Scope 3, Category 1: Purchased goods and services, since packaging materials are a purchased input. The programme is not primarily a decarbonisation measure, and the company reports its greenhouse gas effect qualitatively rather than as a figure.

The climate contribution is indirect but structural: recycled plastic carries a lower carbon footprint than virgin resin, so each tonne substituted reduces the embedded emissions of the pack. Over the 2021–2025 period the substitution covered 7,896 tonnes of post-consumer recycled plastic in place of virgin resin, and recycled content in packaging reached 11% in 2025, so the reduction in upstream value chain emissions scales with that volume alongside the reduction in primary plastic demand.

Nature

Because one tonne of PCR replaces approximately one tonne of virgin plastic, cumulative use of 7,896 tonnes of PCR over 2021–2025 is estimated to have avoided approximately 7,896 tonnes of virgin plastic.

The second effect is on leakage. Keeping plastic circulating in the economy reduces the volume escaping into nature and into the seas, and the demand created for collected material strengthens the incentive to collect and recycle rather than discard.

Social

The demand signal reaches the local recycling value chain. Recyclers, waste collection and waste management operators gain a growing and more predictable order book, which supports investment in collection and processing capacity in Türkiye and improves their competitiveness. The company reports this effect qualitatively rather than in terms of jobs or capacity created.

Business Impact

Benefits

The clearest business value is regulatory readiness. Extended Producer Responsibility schemes and recycled-content mandates are tightening, and a company already at 11% recycled content with an established supplier base is positioned to meet them rather than to respond to them. Consumer expectation moves in the same direction.

Supply security improved alongside it. The supplier base for recycled plastic grew from two in 2016 to more than 60, and the group procures over 150,000 tonnes of recycled plastic a year worldwide, which reduces dependence on any single source of either recycled or virgin resin.

The work is connected to performance management: the plastic indicator forms part of the Sustainability Progress Index (SPI) that determines leadership bonuses for 2026–2028. Data is tracked within corporate sustainability and packaging reporting systems and linked to global targets, so the figures are auditable and continuously updated.

Costs

PCR costs more than virgin plastic, and that price gap is the principal cost of the programme. It is not offset by material savings, since the substitution is close to one-for-one by mass, so the effect on operating cost is an increase in the packaging material line rather than a saving.

The other cost drivers relate to development rather than to purchase: supplier qualification and development; technical validation of each grade for colour, odour and structural performance; food-contact compliance verification; and packaging redesign where a grade behaves differently from virgin resin. The group increased its investment in material science and packaging research and development, supported by advanced materials work at its Port Sunlight research base. No subsidies are reported for the programme, and no investment in filling equipment was required.

Supply is the binding constraint. High-quality and food-grade PCR, and the feedstock behind it, are in limited supply, and quality consistency varies. These costs and risks are contained by broadening the supplier base, applying technical verification before commercial use, converting the highest-volume formats first so that the price gap buys the largest tonnage effect, and entering long-term supply collaborations rather than spot purchasing.

Impact Beyond Sustainability And Business

Co-benefits

Purchasing recycled resin at volume raises demand for packaging collection and recycling, which feeds back into supply and keeps plastic in circulation. The effect extends beyond the company's own footprint: it supports the recycled plastic ecosystem in Türkiye and gives recyclers a more predictable basis for investment.

Potential side-effects

Recycled resin varies in colour, odour and structural properties in ways virgin resin does not, which constrains the packs in which it can be used and requires technical verification for each grade. The company manages this through joint technical work with its suppliers rather than by rejecting variable material.

Typical Business Profile

The model is most relevant to consumer goods manufacturers and to any business placing high volumes of plastic packaging on the market, particularly in categories such as home care where large rigid formats are more straightforward to convert. It suits companies at an early stage of circular economy maturity, since the model requires no change to filling assets, and it is well matched to developing markets where a recycling value chain exists but lacks demand certainty. The functions involved are packaging, procurement, sustainability, research and development, and the business or category teams.

Approach

1. Baseline the packaging footprint: Measure packaging plastic by mass and adopt a recycled-content ratio, annual PCR volume divided by total packaging footprint, as the tracked indicator.

2. Prioritise feasible formats: Select the categories and formats where recycled resin is technically feasible first, starting with high-volume rigid formats such as home care bottles.

3. Develop the supplier base: Build the capacity to deliver consistent recycled resin at volume, expanding the base deliberately rather than depending on a single source.

4. Verify each grade technically: Test colour, odour and structural performance, and confirm food-contact compliance where applicable, before a grade enters a commercial pack.

5. Work jointly with the recycler: Lift mechanically recycled material to bottle-grade quality through site visits, technical reviews and shared workshops.

6. Embed targets in business groups: Place recycled-content targets in business group roadmaps so that each category owns its own conversion rather than relying on a central team.

7. Link to performance management: Connect the plastic indicator to executive performance management so that the target is maintained across budget cycles.

8. Report annually: Publish volumes and the recycled-content ratio with a business group breakdown, within the corporate sustainability reporting system.

Stakeholders Involved

• Project leads: Project leadership sits with senior management under the plastic priority, one of four priority areas in the group's global sustainability agenda. Senior management sets the virgin plastic reduction and recycled-content targets, connects them to corporate strategy and performance management, and reviews delivery with the business groups that own the conversion.

• Company functions: Packaging, sustainability and procurement work as one group: packaging owns the technical specification and the redesign work, procurement qualifies and contracts the recycled resin supply, and sustainability tracks the recycled-content ratio and reports it. Targets are embedded in business group roadmaps so that each category converts its own portfolio against a shared indicator. Packaging development is supported by advanced materials science at the group's Port Sunlight research base.

• Main providers: A strategic recycled-plastic supplier, in partnership since 2020, provides high-quality PCR feedstock from its processing and production capacity. The relationship is run as joint development rather than as purchasing, through site visits, joint technical assessments and shared workshops that lifted mechanically recycled material to bottle grade. Packaging converters integrate the recycled resin into finished packs against specifications issued by the company, which sets the packaging targets, creates the demand, and owns the technical specification and quality verification.

• Other: Waste collection and waste management operators supply the feedstock and receive a committed volume signal in return, which gives them a more predictable basis for investing in collection and processing capacity. Regulatory and public stakeholders shape the framework through Extended Producer Responsibility. The programme is also supported by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Global Commitment 2030, which provides the collective target framework the company reports its progress within.

Key Parameters To Consider

Mechanical recycling is a mature technology; the constraint is feedstock quality rather than process readiness. The Turkish programme moved from a 2021 pilot to embedded operation in five years, with reported impact data covering 2021–2025 and business group level breakdowns for 2024 and 2025.

Technical prerequisites include:

• access to recycled resin of consistent quality;

• in-house or supplier capability to verify food-contact compliance; and

• packaging design capacity to accommodate variability in colour and structure.

The company reports no change to filling equipment.

The programme is the Turkish component of global circularity targets of 30% virgin plastic reduction by 2026 and 40% by 2028, and the local target is to source 14% of the plastic footprint from PCR in 2026, equivalent to approximately 78 million bottles. Reporting follows ISSB (IFRS S1–S2) and TCFD aligned disclosure with independent verification (1).

Implementation And Operations Tips

Two constraints determine whether the model works: supply and quality. Limited availability of high-quality and food-grade recycled plastic, inconsistency in colour, odour and structural properties, and a higher price than virgin resin are all material, and none of them resolves without sustained management attention.

The response was to treat the recycler as a development partner rather than as a vendor. Regular site visits, joint technical assessments and shared workshops created a continuous feedback loop, through which mechanically recycled HDPE was brought to bottle quality for a mainstream supply chain.

Proving the approach in one business group first was important. Reaching 16% recycled content in home care, a high-volume category, gave the other categories a template supported by evidence. Wider adoption is then driven by regulatory pressure and by committed volume demand, which is what allows the recycling value chain to invest and supply.

Source List

(1) Annual report and accounts 2025