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The alliance to end plastic waste (aepw), a circular economy organization established in January 2019, is promoting the implementation of various projects. Jacob duer, chairman and CEO of the alliance, said in an interview with foreign media resource recycling recently that the alliance has approved 14 projects around the world.

The end of plastics waste Alliance (aepw) was established in January 2019. Its goal is to evaluate the plastic industry chain from the whole life cycle, so as to achieve environmental protection and explore the value of improving plastic waste. Aepw's founding members include BASF, berry global, Braskem, Chevron Phillips Chemical, Clariant, kostron, CP Group, Dow Chemical, DSM, ExxonMobil, Formosa Plastics Group (US), Henkel, LyondellBasell, Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings, Mitsui chemical, Nova chemical, oxychem, PolyOne, P & G, Reliance Industries, Saudi Basic industries Sasol, shell, Suez, Siam chemical, Sumitomo chemical, total, Veolia and versalis under Eni group.

47 enterprises have received US $1 billion in funding

According to Jacob duer, the alliance is currently funded by 47 companies with a total investment of $1 billion to reduce plastic waste. When the project was launched in early 2019, it was funded by only 25 enterprises. The alliance hopes to continue to increase its membership and receive $1.5 billion in funding.

With the support of major packaging value chain enterprises, the end of plastic waste alliance has established contacts with France, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.

About half of the 14 approved projects have been implemented, duer said. Affected by the epidemic, the progress of many projects of the alliance has been put on hold for the time being, but he expects the alliance to intensify its efforts in the next few months.

"All projects will be up and running in 2020," duer said. "We can't do it at the pace we want, but we make sure that we can speed up action and continue to approve new projects when possible."

Latest project: closing the loop waste plastic recycling in Ghana

The latest funded project disclosed by the alliance is a plastic processing plant in Accra, Ghana, which mainly recycles LDPE water bags, HDPE plastic bottles and large hard HDPE plastic products.

The plant is part of a project called "closing the loop," which also includes training women entrepreneurs to develop profitable waste plastic collection and treatment materials systems.

The project was launched in 2018 by the nonprofit asase foundation, and the Alliance announced earlier this month that it would support the work.

The coalition to end plastic waste announced earlier this month funding a women led recycling plant in Ghana. (image source: ASE Foundation)

It is reported that within the first year, the company processed 35 metric tons of plastic waste materials, with the goal of increasing the amount of plastic waste processing to 2,200 metric tons next year.

To achieve this goal, the plant will optimize the plant's cleaning production line, install LDPE dewatering dryers, install new shredders and screens for HDPE, and add extruders to produce pellets.

Duer said that the alliance can expand the scope of solving sustainable development problems, not only to deal with more waste plastic, but also to create more jobs for local communities. At the same time, I hope to be able to research projects that can be copied or expanded.

In addition to supporting Ghana’s waste plastics plant, other initiatives announced by the alliance include the removal of more than 1 million pounds of waste plastic from the Ganges River in India each year, and projects built around the development of “social enterprises” to help reduce Urban waste plastic.

Duer said that in most cases, the alliance is willing to provide financial and technical support to some mature projects that have established links with local environmental organizations. Duer added that if a project can get the assistance of the alliance, then the project will win more external funding.

"Every week an investor tells me,'We have a waste treatment investment fund. Many times, they are looking for projects that have been "risk-reduced" and can be invested relatively safely, and the alliance becomes their investment project A medium." Duer said.

Expand the alliance's global cooperation footprint

Another alliance project expands its business to Europe and America. At the end of last year, the alliance partnered with a Silicon Valley-based Plug and Play, which operates a platform that attracts investment for technology startups in different fields.

In recent months, the Alliance and Plug and Play have launched a series of business incubation projects in California, France and Singapore, aiming to find technologies on the market that will help the collection and treatment of plastic waste.

Some companies in the recycling industry, including AMP Robotics, Continuus Materials and Resynergi have already participated in these business incubation projects.

The alliance also intends to expand its footprint to China. In January this year, Jacob Duer and his party visited China to discuss the model of establishing a regional cooperation mechanism in China, and participated in the China Plastics Value Chain Stakeholder Dialogue hosted by the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation Foreign Investment Committee.

The chairman and CEO of the Plastic Waste Alliance, Jacob Duer, visited China for the first time this year to discuss the mode of establishing a regional cooperation mechanism in China. (Picture from Sohu News)

Alliances and dozens of companies from Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, ExxonMobil, BASF, Dow, Covestro, Procter & Gamble, Tomra, Veolia, Sinopec, Sinochem International, China Chemical Engineering, Wanhua Chemical, Kingfa Enterprises and experts from the Materials Recycling Association, Tsinghua University, etc. discussed the management and response of plastic waste in China.

Participants agreed to pay attention to policy trends, strengthen industry research, formulate unified standards, and call on the industry chain to strengthen cooperation with stakeholders in different links such as production, circulation, processing, collection management, recycling, etc., find suitable technical solutions, and explore the establishment of Sustainable cooperation model.