Alliance to End Plastic Waste

The Alliance to End Plastic Waste includes global companies from the plastics, chemicals and CPG value chain coming together to promote solutions to end plastic waste in the environment. 

The 29 member companies have committed over US$1 billion, with the goal of investing $1.5 billion over the next five years, to help end plastic waste in the environment. The Alliance — whose membership represents companies located throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East — will develop and bring to scale solutions that will minimize and manage plastic waste and promote solutions for used plastics by helping to enable a circular economy.

It is a not-for-profit organization that includes companies that make, use, sell, process, collect and recycle plastics — including chemical and plastic manufacturers, CPG companies, retailers, converters and waste-management companies — aka the plastics value chain. They have been working with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development as a founding strategic partner.

They announced an initial set of projects and collaborations that reflect a range of solutions to help end plastic waste:

• Partnering with cities to design integrated waste-management systems in large urban areas where infrastructure is lacking, especially those along rivers, which transport vast amounts of unmanaged plastic waste from land to the ocean. 
• Funding the Incubator Network by Circulate Capital to develop and promote technologies, business models and entrepreneurs that prevent ocean plastic waste and improve waste management and recycling.
• Developing an open source, science-based global information project to support waste-management projects globally with reliable data collection, metrics, standards, and methodologies to help governments, companies, and investors focus on and accelerate actions to stop plastic waste from entering the environment.
• Creating a capacity-building collaboration with intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations to conduct joint workshops and trainings 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 aid localized investment and engagement. The program is designed to capture plastic waste before it reaches the ocean from the ten major rivers shown to carry the vast majority of land-based waste to the ocean. The initial work will support the Renew Ganga project, which has also received support from the National Geographic Society.

In the months ahead, the Alliance will make additional investments and drive progress in four key areas: 

• Infrastructure development to collect and manage waste and increase recycling
• Innovation to advance and scale new technologies that make recycling and recovering plastics easier and create value from all post-use plastics
• Education and engagement of governments, businesses, and communities to mobilize action
• Cleanup of concentrated areas of plastic waste, particularly rivers, which carry land-based plastic waste to oceans and beaches.   

The following companies are the founding members of the Alliance: BASF, Berry Global, Braskem, Chevron Phillips, Clariant, Covestro, The Dow Chemical Company, 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 Group).