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The new plastic economy

Now, harnessing this capability to improve the reuse of plastic materials – while continuing to expand its functionality and reduce its cost – could create a new engine to move towards a system that works: a New Plastics Economy.

The overarching vision of the New Plastics Economy is that plastics never become waste; rather, they re-enter the economy as valuable technical or biological resources.

The New Plastics Economy is underpinned by and aligns with circular economy principles. It sets the ambition to deliver better system-wide economic and environmental outcomes by creating an effective after-use plastics economy that improves the economics and uptake of recycling and reuse through local communities, corporate manufacturers, and governmental entities.

This is the cornerstone of the New Plastics Economy and its first priority, to help realize the two following ambitions.

  1. Drastically reduce leakage of plastics into natural systems (in particular the ocean) and other negative externalities.

  2. Decouple plastics from fossil feedstocks by – in addition to reducing cycle losses and dematerializing – exploring and adopting renewably sourced feedstocks.

The New Plastics Economy builds on and aligns with the principles of the circular economy, an industrial system that is restorative and regenerative.

The Plastic Circular Economy

The circular economy is an industrial system that is restorative and regenerative by design. It rests on three main principles: preserving and enhancing natural capital, optimizing resource yields and fostering system effectiveness.

http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_New_Plastics_Economy.pdf

Creating an effective after-use plastics economy is the cornerstone of the New Plastics Economy and its first priority.
Not only is it critical to capture more material value and increase resource productivity, it also provides a direct economic incentive to community members to avoid leakage into natural systems and helps enable the transition to renewably sourced feedstock by reducing its scale.

  • There is significant potential to capture more material value by radically improving recycling economics, quality and uptake. Coordinated and compounding action and innovation across the global value chain are needed to capture the potential.

Through creating effective after-use markets, the New Plastics Economy provides a direct incentive to build up collection and reprocessing infrastructure, and hence reduce leakage.

Internationaly

Many developing countries are building up after-use infrastructure, making this a critical crossroads moment. Investments made now will determine the infrastructure for the coming decades. Coordinating action and agendas across the value chain could catalyse impact.

Implementation

To move beyond small-scale and incremental improvements and achieve a systemic shift towards the New Plastics Economy, existing improvement initiatives would need to be complemented and guided by a concerted, global collaboration initiative that matches the scale of the challenge and the opportunity.

  • Such an initiative does not exist today, and therefore would need to be set up, driven by an independent coordinating vehicle.

Innovation for and transition to the New Plastics Economy must be driven by joint, urgent, collaborative initiatives across industries, governments and NGOs

  • This would make it possible to address the chronic fragmentation and the lack of global standards, to benefit the development of effective markets.

Collaboration would be required to overcome fragmentation, the chronic lack of alignment between innovation in the design and after-use stages, and the lack of standards – challenges that must be resolved in order to unlock the opportunities of the New Plastics Economy.

  • This vehicle would need to bring together the different actors in a cross-value chain dialogue mechanism and drive change by focusing on efforts with compounding effects that together would have the potential to shift the global market.

Analysis to date suggests that the initial areas of focus could be: 1. Establish the Global Plastics Protocol and coordinate large-scale pilots and demonstration projects.

  1. Mobilize large-scale, targeted “moon shot” innovations.

  2. Develop insights and build a base of economic and scientific evidence.

  3. Engage policy-makers.

  4. Coordinate and drive communication.