Amcor partners with McKinsey.org to build recycling systems in Latin America
Amcor has partnered with McKinsey.org, a nonprofit founded by global consultancy McKinsey & Company, to develop recycling and waste management solutions that can be applied across communities in Latin America. 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 organisation of workshops with supply chain partners and helped McKinsey.org to develop a city selection process for the Rethinking Recycling program.
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 maximise 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 U.S. 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.
