Through The Incubation Network’s programmes, small local businesses and entrepreneurs in the plastics value chain are receiving the support they need to get their ideas off the ground. Driven by The Circulate Initiative and SecondMuse, and co-funded by the Alliance, incubator initiatives are advancing promising ideas by providing entrepreneurs with capital, know-how, and connections.

These incubator programmes include country-specific ones like the Java Low-Value Plastics Accelerator and the Thailand Plastics Circularity Accelerator. Others have targeted region-wide programmes, like the Plastic Waste to Value Southeast Asia Challenge, which was extended to innovative upcycling and recycling ventures in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

More than 350 start-ups have been supported through The Incubation Network, with more than US$2million in funding. Of these, the Alliance has supported 57 start-ups directly to develop an integrated, robust ecosystem around our projects.

Take the Alliance’s Eco Digiclean Klongtoei (see Enabling the Plastic Waste Value Chain in Klongtoei) project for instance. While linking consumers, waste collectors, and recyclers on a singular app opens opportunities to collect and process more plastic waste, the amount that can be recycled is limited, in part by the ability of local recyclers to process low value plastic waste.

Enter the Thailand Plastics Circularity Accelerator, where support was given to Thai-based businesses with a keen focus on these grades of recyclable plastic waste.

Today, four local start-ups have scaled their solutions, creating a larger appetite to collect and sell what was previously considered to be of low value.

In Indonesia, the same challenge to create value from plastic waste is being approached differently. There, Indonesian start-up, Plustik, built a sorting facility and hired people from local communities to extract low-value, hard-to-recycle plastic waste, turning it into pavement blocks for the city’s parks.

Plustik participated in the Java Low-Value Plastics Accelerator. Its aim: to identify and scale potential off-takers for low-value plastic waste that will be collected through the Alliance’s programme, Bersih Indonesia: Eliminasi Sampah Plastik (see Advancing Integrated Waste Management at Scale in Indonesia).

Today, Plustik has reduced the amount of mixed plastic waste that finds its way into the landfill by about 1,800 tonnes a year.

With funding and support from the Alliance, The Incubation Network has brought the region a little closer to achieving just and equitable