Report

Catalysing Impact

Welcome to the Alliance’s 2022 Progress Report. This year, we set out an evolved approach to measuring and reporting our impact, reflecting our focus and growth as an organisation.

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Catalysing Impact

The challenge to end plastic waste leakage in the environment is huge but not insurmountable. Since our inception, we have been working to create solutions that will make a positive impact and a meaningful difference for communities around the world in the longer term. These solutions benefit from our growing understanding of the complexity of the challenge. At this critical time, the Alliance plays a transformational role, but we are not the whole solution. We catalyse impact by developing a suite of solutions needed to meet the plastic waste challenge.

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The challenge to end plastic waste leakage in the environment is huge but not insurmountable. Since our inception, we have been working to create solutions that will make a positive impact and a meaningful difference for communities around the world in the longer term. These solutions benefit from our growing understanding of the complexity of the challenge. At this critical time, the Alliance plays a transformational role, but we are not the whole solution. We catalyse impact by developing a suite of solutions needed to meet the plastic waste challenge.

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Advancing circularity hinges on the collaboration of governments, businesses, civil society, financial institutions, academia, and communities, both globally and locally.  We convene stakeholders in the plastic circularity ecosystem through trusted engagement and dialogue. This allows us to scale the benefits of our work across value chains, partners and local communities.

Solution Models

Our work is built on the concept of “solution models”. We fund projects that test promising new technologies, business models, funding ideas, and so on, to solve the challenge. When a project works well – that is, it successfully demonstrates a solution model – we intend to share our success as widely as possible so that others can build on our work and replicate it.As the Alliance continues its work, we hope to build an ever-growing repository of solution models that address more and more aspects of the plastic waste management challenge.

Test-bedding solution models

‍Eco Digiclean Klongtoei

In central Bangkok’s Klongtoei district, the Recycle Market app is connecting players in the district’s recycling ecosystem. From residents through to recyclers, plastic waste is purchased and delivered on demand. Some 2,000 residents are participating in the Eco Digiclean Klongtoei pilot, where the app issues credits for deposited waste, and can be redeemed for cash.

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Closing the Gap with Reclaimers

In South Africa, informal waste pickers or “reclaimers” remain largely invisible, despite being critical contributors to waste management. Johannesburg-based African Reclaimers Organisation has been working to change this through uniting 6,000 reclaimers under a single umbrella.

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Bersih Indonesia: Eliminasi Sampah Plastik

One of the most ambitious waste management projects is underway in Indonesia. The aspiration is to bring together the municipal and national governments, expertise and funds from the private sector, and the participation of local communities in a coordinated push to transform the waste management landscape.

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‍The Incubation Network

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. Incubator initiatives include country-specific ones and region-wide programmes, and the Alliance has supported start-ups directly to develop an integrated, robust ecosystem around our projects.

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Megloo Re-use and POOL Recycling System

Japan ranks among the largest producers of plastic waste in the world, and the nation’s culture of innovation is helping it solve this problem. Through our incubation programme with Plug and Play, the End Plastic Waste Innovation Platform, two of 11 winning initiatives have become part of the Alliance’s portfolio of solutions: Megloo Re-use and POOL Recycling System.

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Changemakers Youth-Led Action Against Plastic Waste

In India, a new generation of eco-warriors is taking the future into its hands – starting with responsible plastic waste management. SOCEO’s educational programme has engaged over 45,000 students on the role they play in addressing plastic waste pollution in the region.

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GIRO Argentina

In five neighbourhoods in the Argentinian city of Olavarría, bags of unsorted waste have become a much less common sight. Instead, almost half the residents and businesses separate their waste before putting it out on designated collection days. With the success of its pilot, Delterra is now rolling out its GIRO Argentina model to 120,000 residents. Olavarría is now on its way to becoming a city with one of the highest..

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Partnership with LOVERE

Instead of serving drinks and snacks, special machines in Chinese cities are taking in plastic waste and dispensing circularity. Building on LOVERE’s model to place smart bins across several districts in the dynamic city of Shanghai, the goal is to more than double recycling rates in Chengdu and Xi’an from 15% to 35%.

Cidades

Recicleiros, in partnership with the Alliance, has started up 14 sorting centres in small to medium-sized cities in Brazil, bringing recycling to these communities for the first time. The project is creating new jobs and connecting various players along the value chain, laying the pathway for an inclusive, high-impact, and economically viable system.

‍Inkwazi Isu

In a country where waste management is hindered by limited and unequally distributed resources, the South African Healthcare Foundation brings the public and private sectors together in a coordinated effort to divert plastic waste. The four-year programme will fund upgrades of sorting, education for the community, and the establishment of an innovation hub.

‍Flexible Plastic Waste Recycling in Kenya

Following a successful six-month collaboration in 2022, Taka Taka and the Alliance are now embarking on a more ambitious undertaking: to put into place a sustainable recycling solution for flexible plastics. In salvaging flexible plastic waste and returning it to the production cycle, the material can be diverted away from the Dandora landfill – one of Africa’s largest dumpsites.

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