The Alliance to End Plastic Waste, a nonprofit organization consisting of 27 global companies, has been created to advance solutions to help reduce mismanaged plastic waste in the environment. SABIC, a diversified chemical manufacturing company headquartered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, will be a founding member of the organization.
The alliance will be a stand-alone, not-for-profit organization composed of companies from across the plastics and consumer goods value chains, including chemicals, plastics and consumer goods producers, retailers, converters and waste management companies.
The organization’s mission is to eliminate plastic waste in our environment. Per the alliance: “Plastics provide health, safety, sustainability and convenience benefits, especially in the developing world where plastic products have helped improve living standards, hygiene and nutrition. They have an important place in our world — but not in our environment.”
The alliance has committed $1.5 billion over the next five years and will work with governments, multilateral institutions, companies, non-government organizations and communities to support investments and programs to help eliminate plastic waste in the environment and to drive progress in these four key areas:
- Infrastructure development to manage waste and increase recycling;
- Innovation to develop and bring to scale new materials and product designs that can minimize waste and new recycling technologies that can create value from all post-use plastics;
- Education and engagement of governments at all levels, communities, businesses and individuals to enlist them in the movement to help end plastic waste in the environment; and
- Clean-up of concentrated areas of waste in the environment, particularly the major conduits of waste that carry land-based waste to the sea like rivers.
For more information, visit www.endplasticwaste.org.