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Expert recommendations

Studies by the World Economic Forum and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, with analytical support from McKinsey & Company, result in developed insights to build an economic and scientific evidence base.
These studies quantify the socio-economic impact of plastic waste, establish measurement tools, and collect a clear fact base. These values enables both the private and public sectors to factor these costs into their decision making involving the use of plastic.

Standards and Protocol

Standards and protocol will connect all actors in the plastic value chain.

Flying around the world without international air traffic control standards and surfing the web without global IP standards would be impossible. While globally adopted standards and protocols can be found in other complex industries, today’s plastic value chain lacks such alignment.

  • A global plastics protocol will provide a core set of standards as the basis on which to innovate.
    It could provide guidance on
    • design,
    • labelling,
    • marking,
    • infrastructure
    • secondary markets

A standard and protocol would overcome the existing fragmentation throughout the plastic value chain and fundamentally shift afteruse collection and reprocessing economics and market effectiveness.

  • The Global Plastics Protocol would set global direction by answering such questions, demonstrate solutions at scale with large-scale pilots and demonstration projects, and drive global convergence (allowing for continued innovation and regional variations) towards the identified designs and systems with proven economics.

Implementation

  • Set up a global, industry-wide, ongoing effort to develop and facilitate adoption of globally recognized plastic labeling/description/categorizing and material marking standards that are aligned with sorting and separation systems and that facilitate the sorting of plastics after use into high-value resource streams.

  • Redesign and converge towards a set of clearly defined collection and sorting archetypes,

    • The fragmentation of current collection and sorting systems comes with several disadvantages: fragmented after-use systems cannot be aligned with the producers needs. ]

      • (the collectors and processors don’t know what the users need) - We need to make a transparent market.

Converging towards such well-defined archetypes within the Global Plastics Protocol would allow alignment across the value chain.

Smart industry

Transform and strengthen markets for recycled plastics, for example, by introducing and scaling up matchmaking mechanisms, for example using aggregator software or platforms to include companies not yet participating on both sides of the recycled plastics market – that is, smaller reprocessing companies and companies that source recycled content at the small- to medium scale; by allowing for more granular and standardised material specifications and better matching of supply and demand; and by strengthening demand for recycled content through industry commitments and/or policy.

Internet based platforms

Cooperative forums (internet based as well as live events) should be used to facilitate better communication along the value chain of plastic waste. * This will allow a more coordinated approach, facilitate better communication of technical requirements and assurances of quality, and result in higher quality and more recycling of plastic waste.
The platforms could utilise existing networks like industry associations, or be developed specifically for the task by industry associations or national authorities.

  • Bringing value chain actors together will facilitate better communication of required standards from manufacturers to compounders, sorters and waste management companies, and similarly allow cooperation between waste management companies and manufacturers on more effective holistic solutions for designing for recyclability, ensuring that waste management process and design for recycling are aligned. Such platforms require active participation from industry, which could be fostered by using such a platform for developing certification, ecodesign and GPP criteria.

Connected Industry

Demonstrate the viability of high-value cascaded recycling by establishing cascaded flows of recycled plastics with a selected group of companies using the same material. This could include both packaging and non-packaging companies using the same polymer type and activities such as aligning on design choices, material specification and logistic chains to make the cascade work.

Equiped industry

Innovation in a range of recycling technologies, including sorting technologies for municipal residual waste and source separated plastics, as well as recycling technologies, could help boost efficiencies and help the market achieve and affordable stream of clean plastic waste.

Funded insustry

Innovation funding could be a driver for cooperation along the value chain, as we have seen in other development projects, and the funding could be aimed at value chain bottlenecks.

Better designed plastic

Bio plastics and compostability

Scale up the use of industrially compostable plastics for targeted applications, returning nutrients from the organic contents (such as food) of the packaging to the soil. This needs to be coupled with adequate infrastructure, as demonstrated successfully, for example, in the city of Milan and at the London Olympics.

Circular Design

  • Companies can contribute to the transition by developing competencies in circular design to implement product reuse, and recycling, and serving as trend-setters of innovative circular economy business models.

Governmental

Engage policy-makers, in a common vision towards a more effective system, and provide them with relevant tools, data and insights related to plastics.

  • Policy makers can support the transition by promoting the reuse of materials and higher resource productivity by rethinking incentives and providing the right set of policies and access to financing.

Implementation

Incineration could be taxed or banned altogether, forcing or incentivizing waste handlers to find better alternatives for disposing of plastic waste.
* A tax could be applied per tonne of waste delivered to incineration facilities based on an average plastic content, controlled over time.
* An outright ban on the incineration of plastics could be phased in over time to allow the waste management infrastructure time to adapt. * An incentive payment for reycling and using recycled products would lead waste handlers and manufactureres in the right direction.

  • Either of these approaches could significantly reduce the amount of plastic waste going to incineration, and could lead to a significant increase in the amount of waste plastic being recycled.
    • incineration with energy recovery may be the optimal treatment option for very low quality plastics that are no longer suitable for recycling.

A tax and incentivization model would make recycling an economically better option than in the current market, while a ban would mean that waste management companies would need to find alternative outlets for plastic waste.

Community and consumer Involvement

Major community groups and consumer stakeholders play an important role in promoting the transition to a circular economy by taking action to carry out practical actions and putting pressure on businesses and governments to accelerate implementation.

  • Green public procurement of products made with recycled plastic, and green public procurement of plastic products designed for easy recycling should be used to help build a large, reliable market that the plastic recycling industry can build upon, and that product manufacturers can work towards fulfilling.
    • This would help build a significant and stable market for recycled plastic and products that are easily recyclable. It could also provide a large stream of clean, high quality plastic waste that could feed directly back into the plastic waste recycling market. An additional benefit could be that the public becomes more accustomed to recycled plastic and drive demand for consumer goods (including packaging) that are easy to recycle or that are made of recyclable material.

Moon Shot Initiatives

We’re on the cusp of a disruptive economic, social and technological revolution. Our world is being rewired, by digitisation, automation, and artificial intelligence. Fields as disparate as biology, engineering, and design are merging. The time for moonshots is now.

  • Mobilize large-scale, targeted “moon shot” innovations The world’s leading businesses, academics and innovators would be invited to come together and define “moon shot” innovations: focused, practical initiatives with a high potential for significant impact at scale.

  • Areas to look at for such innovations could include

    • the development of biobenign materials;
    • the development of materials designed to facilitate multilayer reprocessing,
      • such as the use of reversible adhesives based on biomimicry principles;
    • the search for a “super-polymer” with the functionality of today’s polymers and with superior recyclability;
    • chemical marking technologies; and
    • chemical recycling technologies that would overcome some of the environmental and economic issues facing current technologies.