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More Solutions

Many innovations and improvement efforts show potential, but to date these have proved to be too fragmented and uncoordinated to have impact at scale.

Plastic Solutions

DIY (Do it yourself)

  • Eco bricks
  • Precious plastics

Industrial solutions

  • Plastic Asphalt
  • By-Fusion bricks
  • Conceptos Plasticos - Colombia
  • Diesel fuel
  • Newlight’s AirCarbon technology can convert methane to PHA, or carbon dioxide to polyurethane and thermoplastics.

Community driven

  • 4 ocean
  • Plastic bank
  • Ecolones - Puerto Rico

Technology driven

  • Ocean clean up
  • Plastic Shift
  • WRAP is working on machine-readable fluorescent inks and sorting technologies to improve polymer identification.59

Nature driven

  • Bio plastics
  • Worms eating plastic
  • Bacteria eating plastic

Government

Policymakers can play an important role in enabling the transition by realigning incentives, facilitating secondary markets, defining standards and stimulating innovation.

  • European Commission’s recently adopted Circular Economy package includes the action to develop a strategy on plastics in the circular economy

    • a target to increase plastic packaging recycling to 55%,
    • a binding target to reduce landfill to 10% of all waste by 2030, and
    • a total ban on landfilling of all separately collected waste.61
      • With the exception of Iceland, all of the Nordic countries operate container deposit schemes.
    • Such schemes have also been deployed in the United States, where the overall recycling rate is 34%
    • states with container deposit laws have an average rate of 70%;
    • Michigan’s $0.10 deposit is the highest in the nation
      • its recycling rate of 95% in 2013.63
    • In 2015, European Union directive came into force that required member states to reduce the use of plastic carrier bags.64
    • France, for example, will outlaw single-use plastic bags as of January 2016.

  • In 2002, Bangladesh became the first country to ban plastic bags, after they were found to have choked drainage systems during devastating floods.65

    • Rwanda followed suit in 2008; and
    • so did China, also in 2008,
      • reducing the number of plastic bags in circulation by an estimated 40 billion in just one year.67
    • more than 25 countries around the globe either ban or tax singleuse plastic bags

  • Guyana has announced plans to ban the import and use of expanded polystyrene > (EPS, commonly known under one of its brand names, Styrofoam) from January 2016;

    • EPS has been widely adopted as single-use food service packaging and makes up 2–5% of Guyana’s waste stream.68
  • In 2014, Washington D.C. banned the use of food service products made of expanded polystyrene, * joining the ranks of tens of other US cities.69 I

  • In 2015, San Francisco took a step towards its 2020 goal of zero waste by banning the sale of plastic bottles in all public places.70

  • December 2015, after legislation had been passed in nine states, the House of Representatives voted to ban the use of synthetic microplastics in personal care products.

  • In 2013, the Mediterranean Region became the first-ever to adopt a legallybinding Regional Plan on Marine Litter Management, in the framework of the UN Environment/Mediterranean Action Plan of the Barcelona Convention, providing for a set of programmes of measures and implementation timetables to prevent and reduce the adverse effects of marine litter on the marine and coastal environment.

  • Container deposit legislation https://www.epa.sa.gov.au/environmental_info/container_deposit