What is the ‘Alliance to End Plastic Waste’?

Since their origin, plastics have helped improve the quality of life, nutrition, branches of connectivity and there are hundreds of other examples where plastics have caused an improvement (usually via convenience).

However, right now about 9 Million tons of plastic waste are being thrown out in the ocean every year!

Considering these kind of numbers and facts, global companies that primarily use plastic in their manufacturing process got together and gave birth to the ‘Alliance to End Plastic Waste on January 16th of 2019.

The Alliance To End Plastic Waste is a growing committee made up of almost 30 international companies from North and South America, Europe, Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

These companies have raised funds up to $1 Billion.

They have also committed to raising $1.5 Billion over the next five years with the uniform goal of putting an end to plastic waste which is polluting the environment.

This alliance is a non-profit aimed entirely at promoting collaboration of major companies of various industries such as plastic and chemical manufacturers, retailers and also many waste management companies in order to promote the safe disposal of plastic.

This couldn’t come to help at a worse situation than this. As of now, about 80% of the plastic waste in oceans has originated from somewhere on the land. A study also claims that 90% of Ocean plastic comes from rivers, 8 of which are in Asia and 2 in Africa.

Goals of ‘Alliance To End Plastic Waste’

The First manifesto of the Alliance includes the following goals to be fulfilled.

• Collaborating with local city authorities in designing an ideal integrated waste disposal system in urban cities that have been developed without the correct infrastructure for proper waste disposal.
• Most specifically in overpopulated urban cities close to rivers that transfer the highest amount of plastic to the oceans.
• Providing funds to The Incubator Network via Circulate Capital so as to promote the development of technologies, business models and entrepreneurs that lead to reducing ocean plastic waste and improve waste management and recycling. The intention is that these projects will be attracted by investments from around the world, mostly to the Southeast Asia.
• Building up an open source, science-based worldwide information project to help the waste management projects internationally with reliable information systems, measurements, standards, and procedures to support governments, organizations, and investors to concentrate on and quicken their activities to prevent plastic waste from entering the earth. The Alliance will investigate chances to collaborate with leading schools and different associations officially engaged with comparative kinds of data collection.
• Creating a capacity building collaboration with intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations to conduct joint workshops for government officials and community-based leaders to help them identify and pursue the most effective and locally-relevant solutions in the highest priority areas.
• Supporting Renew Oceans to help localized investment and engagement. The program is designed to capture plastic waste before it reaches the ocean from the 10 major rivers shown to carry the vast majority of land-based waste to the ocean (8 in Asia, 2 in Africa). The initial work will support the Renew Ganga project, which has also received support from the National Geographic Society.

By having these many goals ensures that this problem is tackled in multiple ways so as to achieve positive results as soon as possible and to make sure that the program is effective.

By working on Infrastructure Development the Alliance can prevent plastic from entering the Oceans or for that matter, the environment. This development will focus on collection, sorting and recycling, specifically in areas where the waste management systems are very limited and where plastic waste is very significant.

Innovations in this field will bring about newer and better ways to reuse,recycle and re-purpose all types of plastic in the markets. These innovations may also suggest how to make products with most limited amount of plastic used. This may even bring out an alternative to Plastic, Who Knows?

Cleaning up of areas with the most amount of plastic is very necessary, especially in waterways from where the plastic reaches the oceans. This is because once the plastic reaches the Ocean it is very difficult to get it back from there. For this matter the plastic that shows up on beaches is necessary to be collected.

Educating the masses about the importance of controlling plastic waste is necessary because for all the goals to work, the people should understand why they are taking part in this campaign.

While our effort will be global, the Alliance can have the greatest impact on the problem by focusing on the parts of the world, where the challenge is greatest; and by sharing solutions and best practices so that these efforts can be amplified and scaled-up around the world.

PETER BAKER,
PRESIDENT AND CEO OF THE WORLD BUSINESS COUNCIL FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

The Global Alliance requires involvement of every part of the communities from all around the world but it has shown that this matter of plastic waste is although difficult, but solvable.

The List of founding companies in the Global Alliance to end plastic waste are the following:

• BASF,
• Berry Global,
• Braskem,
• Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LLC,
• Clariant,
• Covestro,
• Dow,
• DSM,
• ExxonMobil,
• Formosa Plastics Corporation USA,
• Henkel, LyondellBasell,
• Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings,
• Mitsui Chemicals,
• NOVA Chemicals,
• OxyChem,
• PolyOne,
• Procter & Gamble,
• Reliance Industries,
• SABIC,
• Sasol,
• SUEZ,
• Shell,
• SCG Chemicals,
• Sumitomo Chemical,
• Total,
• Veolia,
• and Versalis (Eni).

Wow! A considerable list of companies joining hands to end plastic waste.

When are you going to pitch this idea to your company?

Tell us how it goes!