Plastics

Shell supports the need for improved circularity of the global plastics market and encourages reduction, reuse and recycling of plastics. We are a founding member of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, which helps governments to assess and improve waste collection and waste management.

Reducing, reusing and recycling our packaging

We are working with our suppliers and contractors to help end plastic waste in the environment. By 2030, we aim to increase the amount of recycled plastic in Shell-branded packaging to 30% and ensure that the packaging we use for our products is reusable or recyclable.

In 2023, 19% of the plastic packaging for Shell-branded car care, food and drink products globally was made from post-consumer recycled material, compared with 8% in 2022. In Europe, 31% of the plastic used in our Shell Car Care packaging for screenwash, coolant and other products was post-consumer recycled (up from 6% in 2022) and 90% of it was recyclable.

Also in 2023, we launched our first lubricant bottles made from 100% post-consumer recycled plastic for selected premium products produced at our plants in Thailand, India, Indonesia and Malaysia. In Europe, we introduced jerrycans which use around 27% less plastic and have better recycling potential than the alternative of round pails. In China, we introduced a 1-litre label-free bottle for motor oil which uses 3% less plastic by weight compared with the standard alternative. In China and North America, our bag-in-box lubricants use 89% less plastic than 1-litre plastic bottles. And in North America, our pilot campaign to collect and recycle lubricant containers recovered around 4,260 kg of hard-to-degrade plastic which might otherwise have been deposited in landfills.

In 2023, more than 40% of Shell-owned service stations had eliminated unnecessary single-use plastic including cutlery, straws and stirrers, up from 30% in 2022; and almost 60% had completely removed single-use plastic bags, compared with 40% in 2022.

Recycling plastic waste as chemical feedstock

Shell is helping to develop a viable plastic circular economy. We are working with partners across the plastic waste value chain, such as the waste management industry and pyrolysis oil producers, to help develop a circular value chain globally.

In 2023, we signed several strategic co-operation agreements with partners to unlock access to plastic waste feedstock and enable long-term storage of pyrolysis oil. Work on our new pyrolysis oil upgrader at the Shell Chemicals Park Moerdijk in the Netherlands continues. The plant, which is expected to start production in 2024, will have the capacity to process up to 50,000 tonnes of pyrolysis oil a year.

While Shell sees customer demand for circular chemicals, the pace of growth globally is less than expected due to lack of available feedstock, slow technology development and regulatory uncertainty. As a result, in 2023 we concluded that the scale of our ambition to turn 1 million tonnes of plastic waste a year into pyrolysis oil by 2025 is unfeasible.

Find out more about how we transform plastic waste into chemical feedstock.

Discover more about waste and our circular economy approach at www.shell.com/sustainability/environment/circular-economy-and-waste.