The South African Plastics Pact, a flagship initiative overseen by green economy cluster organisation GreenCape, hosted an exclusive event on 1 June 2026 to officially launch its next phase of action towards a circular economy for plastic packaging in the country. The event featured a keynote address by the recently appointed Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), Willie Aucamp, who joined industry pioneers to launch the Pact’s ambitious 2030 targets and to discuss how this aligns with the national ‘Plastic Reboot’ project.
The SA Plastics Pact was officially launched in 2020 with four ambitious targets, set for 2025. During the course of 2025, Pact members finalised work on a new set of targets with the intention of transitioning from the foundational 2025 Roadmap—which saw member companies invest over R4-billion to redesign the packaging landscape and scale local recycling capacity—to the new 2030 targets which represent a major structural shift toward systemic, upstream, and midstream interventions across South Africa’s plastics value chain. Data for 2025 is still being collected and analysed, but the 2024 Impact Report, published in January, provides the backdrop for the successes achieved to date.
During his address Minister Aucamp referenced this transition.
“I am proud that my Department has been part of the SA Plastics Pact since its launch in January 2020 and here we are again in 2026, to not only celebrate the achievements of this important initiative to date, but to also plan and collaborate for its next chapter.”
“We would like to encourage more within the sector to take advantage of the opportunities that are presented by the Plastic Pact. The launch of the SA Plastics Pact 2030 is a declaration of intent to achieve more. It signals our collective determination to move beyond business as usual and towards a future in which economic growth, environmental sustainability, and social inclusion go hand in hand.”
Minister Willie Aucamp
The 2030 targets launched by Minister Aucamp and the Pact membership include:
- Target 1: A 20% intensity reduction in virgin fossil-fuel-based packaging through increased recycled content, addressing problematic items, and introducing widespread reuse/refill systems.
- Target 2: 100% of rigid plastic packaging to be designed for recyclability.
- Target 3: 70% of flexible plastic packaging to be designed for recyclability.
- Target 4: Achieving a 55% output recycling rate for plastic packaging.
PICTURED: Minister Aucamp addresses senior executives of the SA Plastics Pact’s membership during the 2030 traget launch on 1 June 2026 (Image: Nicholas Fordyce).
Outgoing SA Plastics Pact Steering Committee Chair and Public Policy & Government Affairs Manager at Pepsico, Blain van Wyk, thanked the steering committee, the Pact members, DFFE and GreenCape for their respective roles in delivering significant progress since the inception of the Pact in 2020.
“I am incredibly proud of what we have achieved during this first phase of Pact. Not only in measuring our progress against the 2025 targets, but in terms of the extensive collaboration that we have achieved. This we carry forward as we transition into this new phase,” said van Wyk.
“The SA Plastics Pact has reached a point of maturity where ambition is increasingly being translated into measurable, cross-sector action,” said Saloshnee Naidoo, Circular Economy Programme Manager at GreenCape. “With the formal launch of the 2030 targets alongside Minister Aucamp, we are sharpening our focus on the deep systemic changes necessary to drive South Africa toward a truly future-fit, resilient plastics economy.”
Central to achieving the 2030 targets is the roll-out of Plastic Reboot, a highly targeted, global five-year project active in 15 countries. Morne du Plessis, CEO at World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) South Africa, introduced the project and called on the Pact members not to get complacent despite the tremendous progress achieved to date.
In South Africa, the Plastic Reboot project is being delivered in partnership between the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), the WWF-SA, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and GreenCape. The project focuses on accelerating circular solutions within the food and beverage sector.
The presence of Minister Willie Aucamp highlights the collaborative effort between national government and private stakeholders. This was a key message of Minister Aucamp, who has emphasised sustainable development that balances environmental responsibility with economic development during his early tenure.
