Major Global Alliance Contributes Over 1 Billion Dollars to End Plastic Waste

• Creating a capacity building collaboration with intergovernmental organisations 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 localised investment and engagement. The programme 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 mobilise action; and,

• Clean up of concentrated areas of plastic waste already in the environment, particularly the major conduits of waste, like rivers, that carry land-based plastic waste to the sea.

Research from the Ocean Conservancy shows that nearly 80 per cent of plastic waste in the ocean begins as litter on land, the vast majority of which travels to the sea by rivers. In fact one study estimates that over 90 per cent of river borne plastic in the ocean comes from 10 major rivers around the world – eight in Asia, and two in Africa. 60 per cent of plastic waste in the ocean can be sourced to five countries in Southeast Asia.

The following companies are the founding members of the Alliance: BASF, Berry Global, Braskem, Chevron Phillips Chemical Company, Clariant, Covestro, Dow, DSM, Exxon Mobil, Formosa Plastics Corporation, U.S.A., Henkel, Lyondell Basell, Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings, Mitsui Chemicals, Nova Chemicals, Oxy Chem, Procter & Gamble, Reliance Industries, Sabic, Sasol, Suez, Shell, SCG Chemicals, Sumitomo Chemical, Total, Veolia, and Versalis (Eni).

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