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Progress Report 2021

Alliance in Action

Alliance logo
Progress Report 2021
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The third edition of the Progress Report was inspired by the collective action of our partners around the world, and the positive impact our work has on the communities we serve.

December 7, 2021
8 min
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Overview

After laying the foundation of the Alliance’s work in the last two years, we focused on creating greater impact through our projects. This is only the beginning. There is more to do to end plastic waste in the environment. We are beginning to see early results and believe that our impact can continue to grow, and drive long-lasting transformation to help end plastic waste in the environment. This is the Alliance in Action.

By de-risking and demonstrating solutions, we are presenting opportunities for further investment, replication and scaling. The good news is that significant capital can be unlocked by demonstrating sustainable, circular, scalable, and economically viable solutions.

David Taylor, Chairman of Alliance to End Plastic Waste

David Taylor

Chairman of Alliance to End Plastic Waste

A key learning for us this year was demonstrating that our approach works. We invest time, as well as financial and technical resources, to de-risk projects at the seed stage, ensuring their long-term viability and potential to grow.

Jacob Duer, President and CEO of Alliance to End Plastic Waste

Jacob Duer

President and CEO of Alliance to End Plastic Waste

Creating Impact: Translating our mission into action

Transformational change must be underpinned by collaboration among the private sector, governments, development agencies, local communities, and civil society.

We crystallised our approach for translating our mission into action—by identifying 6 gaps that must be bridged to advance plastics circularity. These build on the 4 strategic pillars that anchor our work, and the 3 drivers that enable our mission.

Together, these form the roadmap through which we will work with different stakeholders to implement solutions that help end plastic waste.

Progress Report 2021

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Strategy in Action

Accra, Ghana: The CASH IT! recycling facility diverted 600 tons of plastic waste from January to September 2021 to be recycled and made into new products.

Infrastructure

A fundamental gap in ensuring waste—plastic, glass, metal, or otherwise—does not enter our environment is the lack of proper waste management infrastructure. Our aim is to help develop infrastructure systems that can eventually be owned and operated by the communities they serve.

In Jembrana, Bali, we are working with the municipal body to develop a waste management system that also contributes to the rejuvenation of the municipality—with cleanup activities and the redevelopment of illegal dumpsites into new public spaces for the community. In Ghana and the Philippines, we are starting to see positive impact as sustainable solutions can help scale business, create better jobs, and transform communities.

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Accra, Ghana: The CASH IT! recycling facility diverted 600 tons of plastic waste from January to September 2021 to be recycled and made into new products.

Innovation

Innovative ideas that are translated into scalable solutions can help to address plastic waste across the value chain.

The Plastics Recovery Insights and Steering Model (PRISM) aims to be a publicly available data platform that allows users to integrate and view multiple plastic waste data sets. Built in partnership with IBM, the platform came to life as a beta version in 2021. PRISM is currently piloted in the Alliance community, capturing user feedback for improvement.

Semi-industrial trials are under way for an innovative sorting technology using digital watermarks called HolyGrail 2.0. If the trials are successful, in-market demonstrations and industrial-scale trials should start in Denmark, France, and Germany by mid-2022.

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Denmark: The new prototype machines, equipped with high resolution cameras, can detect and decode the information carried by digital watermarks—allowing for accurate sorting of different packaging.
Haridwar, India: Dozens of cleanups were organised as part of the Aviral – Reducing Plastic Waste in the Ganga programme, helping prevent plastic waste leakage into the environment.

Education & Engagement

Empowering communities with the knowledge and tools to be part of the solution forms the ‘heartware’ that helps ensure that the ‘hardware’ we develop can have long-lasting impact.

We partnered German development agency, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) to pilot a waste management system in the cities of Haridwar and Rishikesh, which lie along the Ganga river, to help prevent plastic waste leakage. Planning for material recovery facilities is under way.

In the meantime, a collective commitment has been made to clean up the iconic river. Several events to raise awareness about source segregation and cleanup activities were conducted with members of the public to help prepare the community for new waste management infrastructure that is planned for commissioning in 2022.

Education and engagement efforts are also expanding in Rayong, Thailand to help households better manage their waste.

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Haridwar, India: Dozens of cleanups were organised as part of the Aviral – Reducing Plastic Waste in the Ganga programme, helping prevent plastic waste leakage into the environment.

Cleanup

By engaging communities in cleanup activities, we encourage them to get involved in keeping their environments litter-free. Cleanups are also the first step towards proper waste collection, processing, and recycling.

From activating grassroots cleanups around the world, to supporting cleanup efforts in Sri Lanka, every activation is another step towards a healthier environment.

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Colombo, Sri Lanka: The Alliance donated 8 Sweepies, specialised nurdle cleanup machines, to Sri Lanka to help clean up some 240 km of Sri Lankan coastline.

Progress Report 2021

Download our latest progress report.