The Innovation Platform interviewed Pranav Goenka, Senior Advisor of The Alliance to End Plastic Waste’s Circular Solutions Centre, to discuss its latest Progress Report outlining its collaborative strategies to combat plastic pollution, focusing on scalable solutions tailored to regional needs.
The Alliance to End Plastic Waste is an independent global non-profit organisation with the purpose of ending plastic waste entering the environment and creating circular systems that keep materials and products in use for as long as possible. We go beyond connecting existing solutions to building unique and impactful circular solutions.
The Alliance convenes companies across the plastic value chain, governments, local communities, civil society groups, intergovernmental organisations, academia, and civil society. The expertise, knowledge, experience, and resources of this network enable our work to help end plastic waste and pollution.
Together, we work towards economically viable, environmentally beneficial, and socially responsible solutions.
The Alliance has made strides towards evolving its methods and solutions to mitigate plastic pollution, capture value from plastic waste, and foster circular economies. Our latest Progress Report encapsulated our achievements with three fundamental principles: build, learn, and scale.
Progress report
First, our emphasis on building stems from having been involved in over 80 projects globally since our inception in 2019, giving us insight into the on-ground realities of operating in both emerging and developed countries. Acting as a solutions laboratory, we engage in iterative testing and optimisation of solutions, including new business models and innovative technologies, in collaboration with our diverse partners. This programmatic approach is designed to meet the distinct and nuanced needs of various geographical regions, recognising that localised contexts necessitate tailored interventions.
Second, the learning component of our strategy is paramount. We engage in co-learning with our partners, particularly in emerging economies with nascent or underdeveloped waste management systems. This experiential learning allows us to extract valuable insights that guide solution implementation. From these insights, we develop blueprints that form the basis of our ‘Solution Model playbooks.’ These resources disseminate our accumulated knowledge gleaned from project experience, encouraging stakeholders to replicate and enhance the methodologies identified.
Lastly, scaling our initiatives is critical for systems transformation. We focus on convening industry stakeholders across the plastics value chain, alongside governments and civil society, to drive the systems change necessary to eliminate the environmental leakage of waste, improve plastic recycling rates, and create viable end-markets for plastic recyclates to bolster the economics of recycling.
In summary, our Progress Report highlights our commitment to building upon existing frameworks, learning dynamically in real-time, and scaling impactful interventions to achieve a more sustainable future.
A multifaceted approach
The Plastic Waste Management Framework was created to document the circumstances of countries with varying levels of systems maturity specific to their plastic waste collection and recycling capacities. The Framework identifies six distinct categories of systems maturity through a meta-analysis of 192 countries. It illustrates the varying levels of progress countries in each category have made in managing and recycling their plastic waste and proposes tailored solutions according to the unique circumstances each maturity level faces.
It goes further to outline 27 actions and policy levers that can help countries evolve or, in some cases, leapfrog their plastic waste collection and recycling rates. It can be used to develop national action plans for advancing waste management systems by documenting critical enablers that can enhance existing systems and promote plastic circularity.
The Plastic Waste Management Framework is essential not just for guiding our initiatives but also for fostering awareness among stakeholders about the significance of effective waste management.
A platform for untested ideas
The challenge of plastic waste is complex, and no single organisation can resolve this crisis independently. Collaboration is essential, but we also need viable and scalable solutions tailored to the regions and municipalities within which they are implemented.
Through our projects, we endeavour to identify solutions that work, pinpointing their critical success factors. The intent is to eventually scale and replicate these solutions with a wide range of partners.
For example, basic waste management solutions already exist, but many emerging markets lack the resources necessary to implement and run waste collection and management systems. In these cases, the Alliance works with governments and other partners to improve waste management systems, whether it is through offering household waste collection services or increasing plastic recycling capacities.
On the other side of the coin, the Alliance also supports nascent but promising solutions to addressing plastic waste. These include forms of advanced sortation and recycling. One example is HolyGrail 2.0, a digital watermarking trial led by AIM – the European Brands Association. Digital watermarking involves covering the surface of packaging items with imperceptible codes that can be identified by high-resolution cameras in a post-disposal sorting process. Early trials have shown that digital watermarks have the potential to significantly improve sortation rates, which is essential to providing clean feedstock streams for recycling. The technology is also applicable to hard-to-recycle plastics such as flexible and multi-layer packaging.
These advanced solutions are particularly relevant for a small group of countries that already boast plastic recycling rates of over 40% and are, therefore, the closest to achieving full plastics circularity.
The challenges lie in the fact that the solutions we support are typically at the edge of what is currently possible, either because they take place in areas where there is high leakage of waste into the environment, are in emerging economies with basic or no waste management systems, involve new technology, innovative business models, novel financing mechanisms, or a combination of all of the above.
Success stories
One notable example is Mr Green Africa, a Nairobi-based recycling enterprise. They are developing a recycling business that leverages a robust informal sector for waste collection. Mr Green Africa produces high-value recyclates that can be reused in various applications within Kenya and exported to other countries for other purposes.
Mr Green Africa works with the city’s sizeable population of informal waste pickers to reach everyday consumers by establishing collection centres in the form of local retail shops, referred to as ‘dukas.’ These small, community-based shops allow consumers to bring their plastic waste in exchange for green points, which can be redeemed for everyday essentials.
This is a great example of how Mr Green Africa is trying to give waste pickers access to viable end markets for the sale of the recyclates generated. This supports the informal sector by providing more stable wages and better working conditions, among other benefits.
Another significant organisation in this area is the Center for Regenerative Design and Collaboration (CRDC), which operates in Costa Rica, the US, and South Africa. Our Progress Report highlights our collaborative work in South Africa, where CRDC uses innovative technology to transform hard-to-recycle plastics into a valuable additive for concrete production. Not only does this approach provide a marketplace for littered plastic waste, but it also enhances the properties of the concrete by increasing its strength, reducing its weight, and lowering its environmental impact due to the reduced energy required for production.
The importance of catalytic capital
While the Alliance actively engages in substantial on-the-ground initiatives to address the plastic waste challenge and advance circular economy principles, the Progress Report highlights the crucial role of catalytic capital.
For starters, an estimated $2.1tr is needed by 2040 to eliminate plastic leakage into the environment and adequately bolster downstream capabilities to cope with rising waste volumes. To bridge this funding gap, the Alliance seeks to unlock new pathways to catalyse capital through financial innovation and blended finance solutions. We effectively de-risk projects for both public and private sector investors by providing concessional capital and expert technical advice on projects in waste management and recycling.
This is exemplified by the PT ALBA Tridi recycling project in Indonesia, a joint venture between Alba Asia Plastics Recycling Limited and Dhara Daya Sustainea. Despite their commendable work, Dhara Daya Sustainea, the local founder company and minority shareholder, encountered significant barriers due to a lack of adequate credit history and background, which impeded their ability to obtain the conventional financing necessary for the establishment and expansion of their operations.
At that time, the Alliance stepped in and provided a $4m concessional loan. This assistance not only enabled them to fulfil their existing commitments but also helped establish their credibility. Consequently, they were able to secure a blue loan from the Asian Development Bank that was more than ten times larger, allowing them to construct an advanced food-grade facility capable of recycling PET bottles back into food-grade PET bottles. This example demonstrates how our intervention mitigates risks and, in turn, amplifies impact.
Another notable case is the ASASE Foundation, in Ghana, which is highlighted in the Progress Report section. This discusses our support for women founders and leaders in the recycling sector. Our journey with ASASE began a few years ago when they were a small social entrepreneurial organisation. Through our support – providing both financing and technical expertise in setting up sorting and recycling operations – they successfully developed a functional system in Accra, Ghana. As a result, ASASE is now a recipient of the World Bank’s Plastic Waste Reduction-Linked Bond, which provides investors with a financial return linked to plastic and carbon credits expected to be generated by the project. This will provide the ASASE Foundation with financing that far exceeds our initial investment.
Informal waste management
The informal sector plays a vital role in waste management, particularly in many low-income countries where it serves as the backbone of the system. These countries often lack adequate infrastructure to handle waste effectively, resulting in a heavy reliance on informal waste collectors for waste management.
Despite their essential contributions, informal waste pickers face numerous challenges and obstacles. First, they occupy the lowest rung of the social ladder, often receiving little recognition for their efforts and experiencing the stigma associated with their work. Second, they operate in environments that pose significant health and safety risks and lack legal protections.
In many cases, women comprise a large portion of this workforce, serving as the primary earners for their families while supporting their children through work that involves collecting waste all day.
In trying to evolve their waste management systems, it is vital that governments deploy policies that support, fund and integrate waste pickers’ contributions, ensuring a just transition which leverages the full potential of the informal waste sector to drive plastic collection and recycling rates.
Much of our work, as outlined in the Progress Report, focuses on lower-income countries. Consequently, the Alliance collaborates closely with the informal sector through our project partners and strategic allies. The Progress Report highlights 18 projects across ten countries that incorporate aspects of the informal sector within the Alliance’s initiatives. In these projects, we aim to enhance the livelihoods and working conditions of informal workers.
For instance, in Johannesburg, South Africa, we collaborate with the African Reclaimers Organisation (ARO). Before the project, waste collection and sorting took place under a highway underpass. Thanks to the funding and the project’s framework, we have now provided a safe and spacious area for workers to carry out their tasks. We have also supplied equipment, like a baler, which helps compact the waste for more efficient transportation to recyclers, enabling them to obtain better value for their efforts.
Another example is called Plastic Cycle in Hanoi, Vietnam. Through this project, over 1,000 workers gained access to social benefits, including proper protective equipment for working in hazardous environments, health insurance, and housing subsidies. Not only did they receive these benefits, but with our funding, our partner was also able to increase productivity, enhancing the collection and sorting of plastic waste in the area.
Using 2023 to influence 2024
This is an evolving journey for us. The increased impact we experienced in 2023 serves as a solid foundation for us to learn and further scale our efforts to drive systems change as we approach the coming years. Based on the solutions we have tested in the field and the insights we have gained, we will need to shift our focus from individual projects to a more targeted approach in specific geographies. This strategy will allow us to intensify our efforts to achieve greater systems change and amplify our impact by going deeper, instead of wider, into the weeds of addressing a country’s plastic waste challenge.
Publishing new Solution Model playbooks will also continue to be a focus. The aim is to generate an impact that goes beyond the output of our projects by sharing learnings from on-ground experience working across both emerging and developed markets.
Collaboration remains the cornerstone of our approach, supporting the transition to a circular economy for plastics. Moving into 2025, the Alliance will continue to play the role of convener, sharing lessons with a wide network of partners to advance circularity.
The outlook for plastic waste management
This is a multifaceted challenge, with several critical gaps throughout the entire life cycle of the plastics value chain that must be addressed. For example, there are significant issues related to the design of materials and challenges surrounding reuse and refill models that could enhance material reutilisation. Additionally, we face shortcomings in the areas of collection, sorting, and recycling of waste. It is crucial to tackle all of these issues systematically to achieve meaningful progress.
Moreover, as discussed in relation to the Plastic Waste Management Framework, there are varying degrees of maturity worldwide when it comes to waste management practices. Some regions have developed advanced systems for waste collection and are making considerable progress in sorting and recycling. In contrast, other areas excel in collection but see a substantial portion of waste directed to managed landfills or incineration. There are also regions where effective waste management systems are virtually non-existent.
Essentially, there is no one-size-fits-all model, and solutions must be tailored to local conditions. The major challenges range from funding and technology to business models and ecosystem maturity – all of which must be addressed to create a meaningful shift. With the work we are doing and what we observe from other organisations in this space, the outlook is positive, and we will continue to make significant contributions in the coming years.
Please note, this article will also appear in the 21st edition of our quarterly publication.
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