Plastics

We produce chemicals that are the raw materials for plastics and plan to produce more as global demand increases. Plastics provide important benefits, helping to improve living standards, hygiene and nutrition around the world.

We are finding new ways to reduce the unnecessary use of plastics and recycle plastic waste into innovative products.

Circular economy for plastics

In 2019, for example, we announced our ambition to use 1 million tonnes of plastic waste as feedstock at our chemical plants by 2025. This is an important step towards building a circular economy by using plastic waste to produce chemicals, which can be used to make plastics again.

The first of our plants to do this in 2019 was Norco in Louisiana, USA. Our intention is to scale up the technology and deploy it at our chemical plants in North America, Europe and Asia, gradually achieving world-scale production by 2025.

Read more about using plastic waste to produce chemicals at www.shell.com/shell-uses-plastic-waste-to-produce-chemicals.

Watch the film at https://youtu.be/iTGghtDUlG0.

Ending plastic waste

We are a founding member of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, which intends to invest about $1.5 billion over the next five years to help end plastic pollution in the environment. The alliance represents a major effort to minimise and manage plastic waste and to develop solutions for used plastics by helping to create a circular economy. To read about our project to prevent plastic waste from entering the river Ganges in India, see Collaborations. You can also visit the Alliance website at endplasticwaste.org.

Reducing, reusing and recycling

We also seek to reduce, reuse and recycle packaging across our supply chains and are exploring different and more sustainable packaging solutions.

For example, Shell companies that manufacture lubricants were the first to create a modern, reusable container for motor engine oil offered on the Loop shopping platform, which allows customers to buy everyday products in reusable containers that do not result in waste. The container is designed to be reused at least 100 times before it is recycled into new lubricant bottles at the end of its life.

In our retail operations, we are working to eliminate unnecessary single-use plastic in our shops and encourage customers and employees to change from disposables to reusables.

In the Philippines, we are working with Green Antz to transform used lubricant bottles and other plastic waste into eco-bricks, which are used to build Shell retail sites and, as a next step, affordable houses and schools.