Racine-based SC Johnson on Sunday announced a series of commitments to combat plastic pollution around the world and said chairman and chief executive officer Fisk Johnson is going on diving trips to see the problem firsthand.
“It is amazing to see firsthand the natural beauty and diversity of our oceans, and to fully appreciate what’s at stake here,” said Johnson, a lifelong diver. “I think it’s incredibly important that business, governments, civil society and people around the globe work together to solve this really important problem for humanity.”
Johnson recently participated in a dive with Conservation International off the coast of Indonesia. He is planning to do other dives in the coming months to explore the impacts of ocean plastic on marine life, the company said.
SC Johnson also signed on to the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. The commitment includes taking steps to eliminate problematic or unnecessary plastic packaging, moving from single-use toward reuse models, making 100 percent of plastic packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable and significantly increasing recycled content in plastic packaging, all by 2025.
The company said 90 percent of its plastic packaging is currently recyclable, reusable, or compostable. SC Johnson also plans to increase the amount of post-consumer recycled plastic content in its packaging from 10 million kilograms to more than 30 million kilograms by 2025. The company will also expand the number of concentrated refill options it offers, remove excess plastic from its packaging and champion curbside recycling of plastic film.
SC Johnson is also partnering with Plastic Bank to open eight recycling centers in Indonesia by May 2019.
“We want to help recover plastic equal to the amount we put into the world, through innovative recycling and recovery programs,” Johnson said. “In this way we can neutralize our environmental impact and, at the same time, do some good in communities that have excessive plastic pollution.”
