The Jembrana regency—where hilly jungles full of life meet beautiful beaches on Bali’s northwest coast—is often touted as a hidden gem. The Ijo Gading River that runs through the regency is the island’s largest ocean plastic contributor, accounting for 12% of Bali’s plastic waste leakage. On its banks are the Jembrana and Negara subdistricts, home of our first Indonesian programme. Project STOP Jembrana is building a new waste management system that will serve 160,000 residents in Jembrana and Negara—empowering the local community to collect, sort, and sell their own plastic waste.

Closing the Loop works by supporting local entrepreneurs from vulnerable communities in the coastal city of Accra in Ghana. The model is simple and effective. Plastic waste is collected and sold to CASH IT!, regrinded, and sold to be reused in products such as household or building materials. Not only are the waste management issues alleviated in Accra, but the unlocked value of plastic waste is channeled back to these communities in the form of jobs and new income streams.

Aviral—which means continuous in Hindi—refers not only to the never-ending flow of the iconic Ganga river, but is also the name of our pilot project along its banks in Haridwar and Rishikesh. These cities have a combined population of 450,000 people and attract 50,000 tourists a day. These numbers swell to tens of millions during major Hindu festivals, drastically increasing the amount of waste produced.

 

Aviral - Reducing Plastic Waste in the Ganga is a pilot project in partnership with GIZ to develop approaches for sustainable and scalable plastic waste management solutions and demonstrate best practice examples in Haridwar and Rishikesh, which can then be replicated in cities across India.

Ideas come from anywhere in the world. That’s why we partnered with Plug and Play Tech Center in 2019 to develop the End Plastic Waste Innovation Platform— to foster startups across the plastic value chain and transform plastic waste management around the world. To date we have seen a myriad of ideas ranging from using artificial intelligence to improve sorting processes, to new advanced recycling technologies, to mobile applications to change hearts and minds everywhere. Each programme is location-based—managed out of our 6 regional hubs—and runs for 12 weeks.

Our first project in the Philippines, Planks of Promise works to turn plastic waste from the Metro Manila area into recyclable plastic planks that will then be made into emergency shelters for Filipinos displaced by the many natural disasters that plague the region.

 

Together with social enterprise The Plastic Flamingo (The Plaf), we will scale up collection of plastic waste, and process it in a new recycling facility. By 2022, the Planks of Promise initiative aims to more than triple this number to 200 collection points. Working with the University of the Philippines Diliman, The Plaf will transform plastic waste, including hard to recycle plastics like sachets and films, into strong, 100% recycled and recyclable plastic “eco” planks. The planks can be used to make emergency shelter kits or sold to contribute to the operating costs of the recycling facility.

The Incubation Network by The Circulate Initiative & SecondMuse is a catalyst for action and investment in the circular economy that aims to prevent the flow of plastic waste into the world’s oceans. The network will create a collective of innovators, investors, civil society organisations, and government leaders across South and Southeast Asia. Collectively, we will design and deliver programs that drive investment, innovation, and partnerships for inclusive and gender-responsive waste management and circular economy solutions.

With the Zero Plastic Waste Cities projects, a partnership with Yunus Environment Hub, we aim to recycle up to 28,000 tons of plastic during the first 5 years of operations in the two cities: Puducherry on the Southeast coast of India, and Tan An on the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. We do this by improving and supplementing existing municipal waste management systems, preventing the collected plastic waste from leaking into the environment and instead turning it into valuable recycled materials, giving value to neglected plastic waste streams. Two options are being developed for the local markets:

• pelletising plastic waste, which in turn can be used in consumer goods or building products;
• using compression moulding to convert the waste into plastic boards that will eventually be used for furniture material, such as shelves, countertops or panels.

Our teams on the ground are in the midst of securing the best locations to build the new recycling facilities, which should be up and running in the first half of 2021.