Plastics
Powering progress
We will work with our suppliers and contractors to help end plastic waste in the environment:
- By 2030, we will increase the amount of recycled plastic in our packaging to 30% and ensure that the packaging we use for our products is reusable or recyclable.
- We will increase the amount of recycled materials used to make our products, starting with plastics. Our ambition is to use 1 million tonnes of plastic waste a year in our global chemicals plants by 2025.
Shell supports the need for improved circularity of global plastics markets and encourages reduction, reuse and recycling of plastics. We are a founding member of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste and in 2021 we set a new ambition to work with our suppliers and contractors to help end plastic waste in the environment.
We continue to explore ways to reduce, reuse and recycle packaging across our supply chains and introduce sustainable packaging. In 2021, we relaunched our range of biodegradable and carbon-neutral lubricants, which are made at solar-powered facilities using sustainable bio-based raw materials and packaged using 40% recycled plastic.
Recycling plastic waste as chemicals feedstock
We are focusing on chemical recycling where we break down hard-to-recycle plastics into raw materials through a technique called pyrolysis. The pyrolysis oil can then be used as feedstock in our chemical plants, replacing traditional hydrocarbon feedstock. This contributes to our circular economy ambition and prevents waste that would otherwise have gone to landfill or incineration.
In November 2021, we announced plans to build a new pyrolysis oil upgrader unit that improves the quality of pyrolysis oil at our Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Singapore. The facility will have a capacity of 50,000 tonnes per year, which is equivalent to the weight of about 7.8 billion waste plastic bags. Shell Ventures BV also announced a strategic partnership with BlueAlp which includes building two new units in the Netherlands to convert more than 30,000 tonnes a year of plastic waste into pyrolysis oil and exploring two more in Asia. Shell companies also have pyrolysis oil agreements with Nexus Fuels in the USA, Environmental Solutions Asia, in Singapore and Pryme in Europe.
Find out more about plastic waste at www.shell.com/plastics.
Find out more about waste and our circular economy approach at www.shell.com/sustainability/environment/circular-economy-and-waste.
