As for what individual companies are doing at this moment — and plan to do moving forward in response to the report — is a little less clear although one report participant Unilever, has already publicly announced its intention to make all plastic packaging used it its multitude of brands “fully reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.” Says Paul Polman, CEO of the British-Dutch consumer goods behemoth, the world’s third largest, which owns a wide range of iconic food and personal care brands including Dove, Lipton, Noxzema, Marmite, Ben & Jerry’s, and Hellmann’s: Our plastic packaging plays a critical role in making our products appealing, safe and enjoyable for our consumers. Yet it is clear that if we want to continue to reap the benefits of this versatile material, we need to do much more as an industry to help ensure it is managed responsibly and efficiently post consumer-use. To address the challenge of ocean plastic waste we need to work on systemic solutions - ones which stop plastics entering our waterways in the first place. We hope these commitments will encourage others in the industry to make collective progress towards ensuring that all of our plastic packaging is fully recyclable and recycled. Dame Ellen MacArthur praises Unilever’s direction in a press statement released by the company: By committing to ambitious circular economy goals for plastic packaging, Unilever is contributing to tangible system change and sends a strong signal to the entire fast-moving consumer goods industry. Combining upstream measures on design and materials with post-use strategies demonstrates the system-wide approach that is required to turn the New Plastics Economy into reality.   Although not listed as a “participating organization” in the report, Procter & Gamble has endorsed the New Plastics Economy initiative and announced, in conjunction with the report's release, that it plans to develop world’s first recyclable shampoo bottle partially made from “beach plastic” — that is, plastic waste plucked from shorelines.   The shampoo bottles themselves — Head & Shoulders brand, by the way — will be composed of 25 percent plastic sourced by volunteers at beaches in Northern France. The pilot initiative, launched by P&G in collaboration with two companies that are listed as participating organizations in the report, the always fantastic upcyclers at TerraCycle and French water and waste management company Suez, will kick off later this summer in France. Says Jean-Louis Chaussade, CEO of Suez: Suez was pleased to contribute to the New Plastics Economy report, a collaborative case for rethinking the current plastics economy. As this report shows, a radical and joint rethink of both design and after-use processes will be required, in addition to other measures such as stimulating demand for secondary raw materials. We look forward to continued collaboration to enable better economic and environmental results in the plastic packaging value chain and to accelerate the transition towards the circular economy.” Outside of beach plastic Head & Shoulders bottles, P&G has also announced that by 2018 roughly 90 percent of all hair care bottles the company sells in Europe — 500 million bottles annually — will be composed of at least 25 percent recycled plastic. In addition to global business heavyweights including Nestle, SABMiller, Coca-Cola, Kimberly-Clark and IKEA, the NYC Department of Sanitation, Zero Waste Scotland, the London Waste & Recycling Board and the city of Atlanta were actively involved in the creation of the report alongside Dow Chemical, DuPont and Australian packaging giant Amcor among others. And not at all surprisingly, sustainable designer and Cradle to Cradle guru William McDonough served on the report's advisory panel. You can view The New Plastics Economy in full here. And be sure to keep an ear open from other major corporations aside from Unilever and Procter & Gamble on how they plan to work together and individually to combat the scourge of ocean-clogging plastic packaging waste.