Amcor is supporting McKinsey.org’s “Rethinking Recycling” initiative in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which has worked with 5,000 households, trained more than 120 workers and helped communities to recycle a third of their waste. Before the initiative, there was no formal recycling system and only a minority of the population regularly sorted their waste.
The project aligns with Amcor’s 2025 Sustainability Pledge and commitment to collaborate with partners globally to promote better waste management and recycling infrastructure. To assist the project, Amcor is leveraging its customer network to expand support for the initiative from leading consumer packaged goods companies. In addition, Amcor has collaborated in the organization of workshops with supply chain partners and helped McKinsey.org to develop a city selection process for the Rethinking Recycling program.
“Amcor is pleased to be working with Rethinking Recycling to help to deliver a sustainable recycling system that could be applied in communities globally,” said David Clark, Amcor’s Vice President for Sustainability. “Developing recycling infrastructure is critical in building a circular system that works and McKinsey.org’s initiative will complement our existing efforts to collaborate to keep waste out of the environment.”
“Amcor has believed in and supported our vision for a world free of waste from the very beginning of the Rethinking Recycling program,” said Larissa Sakamoto, program manager at McKinsey.org. “With a shared commitment to creating sustainable waste ecosystems, Amcor’s investment is an important step in empowering every community to build green, economically-sustainable recycling systems.”
Rethinking Recycling has big vision
Founded in 2018, Rethinking Recycling aims to develop scalable models that transform how communities manage their waste, targeting households and businesses. The program works with cities to build community programs that maximize recycling, while improving working conditions in waste management to support long-term jobs and economic growth.
In Argentina, Rethinking Recycling started with a successful pilot project in Buenos Aires’ Barrio 31 and has now been scaled up in Olavarría, a larger city in Buenos Aires province. The three-year project aims to fully roll-out a recycling program across the entire city. Beginning this year, it will launch a series of pilots to test and improve recycling in the community, before expanding in 2022 and 2023.
Collaborating for impact
Scaling recycling infrastructure is not a unique challenge to Argentina. So, in addition to Amcor’s work with Rethinking Recycling, Amcor is committed to partnering and collaborating globally where it can have the greatest impact to improve recycling rates. Another example of Amcor’s collaboration in action is its work with the Recycling Partnership to increase residential recycling in the USA. Since joining, Amcor and fellow partners have provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to the initiative, helping to boost recycling rates and the availability of recycled material for packaging.
