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02/18/2026

Packaging Sustainability is ‘Failing.’ Or Is It?

Source: Packaging Dive, February 12, 2026

Packaging sustainability is failing. Or it isn’t. Or maybe it’s just changing.

Discussions about that hot-button topic unexpectedly wove through multiple sessions at The Packaging Conference this week after one of the first speakers, Tim Burns, senior advisor at Perella Weinberg Partners, declared: “We’ve been talking sustainability, we’ve been talking recycling, we’ve been talking composting, we’ve been talking all this stuff. The bottom line is: We’re failing.”

Burns made the claim during a session he co-led about M&A in the packaging industry, noting the impact of sustainability pursuits on material choices and sourcing — and the correlation to companies’ earnings and valuations. The claim largely centered on end-of-life management for plastic packaging. 

He cited lagging material collection in both Europe and the United States. But he pointed to a winner among the losers: Japan.

“The recovery rate in Japan is not anywhere different from ours. But what they’re recovering is the stuff that makes money for them, and can be done in the systems out there,” Burns said, adding that the country is “not afraid of incineration.”

“My argument is the Chicagos of the world, and New Yorks of the world, the L.A.s of the world, Houston, you name it: They ought to take on what Tokyo is doing,” he said. “I’d like to say we can pull out of [this failing position]. But I’m telling you right now: I don’t see it. And I think the Japanese are doing the very best job.”

The wave of companies and organizations eliminating, reworking or extending the deadlines for their sustainability commitments hasn’t helped perceptions of failures. 

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