Today the World Food Travel Association announced that it has become a signatory of the Global Tourism Plastics Initiative, a project led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), in collaboration with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

The Global Tourism Plastics Initiative (GTPI) unites the tourism sector behind a common vision to address the root causes of plastic pollution. It enables businesses, governments, associations and NGOs to take concerted action, leading by example in the shift towards how we use and dispose of plastics.

“As a signatory of the initiative, we endorse the common vision to address the root causes of plastic pollution in tourism,” said WFTA Executive Director Erik Wolf. “We commit to eliminate the plastic items we don’t need, and innovate so all plastics we do need are designed to be safely reused, recycled, or composted. We are pleased to endorse this initiative as further evidence of our commitment to reduce the food and beverage packaging waste generated by our industry.”

The GTPI requires tourism organisations to make a set of concrete and actionable commitments by 2025. These include:

• Eliminate problematic or unnecessary plastic packaging and items by 2025;
• Take action to move from single-use to reusable models or reusable alternatives by 2025;
• Engage the value chain to move towards 100% of plastic packaging to be reusable, recyclable, or compostable choices;
• Take action to increase the amount of recycled content across all plastic packaging and items used
• Commit to collaborate and invest to increase the recycling and composting rates for plastics
• Report publicly and annually on progress made towards these targets.

Learn more about the UN’s Global Plastics Tourism Initiative here.