The global plastic crisis is a tale of numbers. Here are just a few:
- The world produces more than 400 million tons of plastic waste each year. Of that, 11 million tons end up in the ocean, equivalent to a garbage truckload every minute. If this trend continues, the plastic floating in our oceans will outweigh the fish that swim there by 2050.
- Half of all plastic produced is designed to be used once and thrown away, and 98 percent of this is “virgin,” which means it is made directly from fossil fuels rather than recycled material. Some 36 percent is used for packaging, including single-use containers that hold food and drinks.
The proliferation of plastic also poses real risks to human health.
As plastic breaks apart, it sheds tiny fragments. These microplastics have been detected in 80 percent of human blood samples tested, including in placenta and breast milk. While the impact they have on our bodies isn’t yet fully understood, many of the chemicals used to make plastics flexible, colorful or heat- and sunlight-resistant are tied to serious health issues.
An ambitious new GEF Integrated Program is working to reduce the food and beverage industry’s use of these single-use plastic items and packaging through a new approach.
Plastic Reboot is a program designed to transform how the food and beverage industry uses plastic, with an integrated programming approach that targets the drivers of environmental degradation.
The program is partnering with governments, businesses, civil society organizations, and experts around the world to build systems that keep plastic out of nature – circular systems that reenvision the plastic value chain to reduce, reuse, and prevent pollution.
The initiative includes national projects in Brazil, Cambodia, Burkina Faso, the Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, India, Jordan, Lao PDR, Senegal, South Africa, Morocco, Nigeria, Peru, and the Philippines – all united by a global platform that will enable the sharing of insights and best practices.
Through the 15 country projects, Plastic Reboot provides catalytic funding, coordination, and technical support to find and test circular policies and solutions. Work in the program focuses on:
- Eliminating single-use and problematic plastic
- Designing for circularity
- Changing systems to support circularity in practice.
While Plastic Reboot focuses on local solutions to plastic pollution, it is also working globally to create the conditions for scale – building the policies, financing mechanisms, and networks that ensure that breakthroughs benefit everyone.
Moving to a circular plastic economy is a tall order for many economies. It demands a reshaping of the plastic value chain, from creation to end-of-life management.
This first part is critical: reducing and preventing plastic pollution at its source by redesigning systems, rather than trying to manage waste after it has already entered the environment.
It is also crucial to phase out harmful chemicals from packaging, using green chemistry to create materials that can re-enter the value chain and protecting human and planetary health by preventing the release of toxins during plastic production, use, and disposal.
Unlike past initiatives that have primarily addressed what happens to plastic after it is thrown away, Plastic Reboot builds on past experience and moves up the value chain to focus chiefly on the early stages: on reducing plastic production and consumption so less of it ends up becoming waste in the first place.
The program, led by UNEP and WWF and implemented in partnership with UNIDO and UNDP, will address these challenges on multiple fronts. First, it will advise and support countries as they create or strengthen national, sub-national, or municipal policies and regulations designed to reduce the use of single-use and virgin plastics in the food and beverage industry.
To unlock funding for the transition to a circular plastic economy, the program is helping governments craft incentive programs, encouraging private investment and blended finance solutions, and supporting the establishment of incubators to nurture transformative ideas from proof of concept through to realization.
The program is also engaging directly with companies in the food and beverage sector to encourage them both to adopt plastics that can be reused and recycled and to be transparent in reporting their use of circular products, materials, and systems.
Since a shift of this magnitude requires a change in attitudes, Plastic Reboot’s national projects are focusing on driving behavior change on how to reuse and dispose of plastics, and demonstrating the economic and societal benefits of moving to a circular economy.
Together with ongoing GEF-funded initiatives focused on plastic disposal and clean-up, Plastic Reboot will help the food and beverage industry change its relationship with plastic to one that is healthier for everyone.
