Alliance to End Plastic Waste partnering with Project STOP

The not-for-profit Alliance to End Plastic Waste is partnering with Project STOP – which aims to prevent plastic waste from reaching the world’s oceans – to further scale up the development of more sustainable and circular waste management systems in Indonesia.

Through Project STOP, the Alliance aims to dramatically improve waste collection, bring collection services for the first time to households, create permanent local jobs in the waste management industry, and clean up areas littered with plastic pollution.

The Alliance’s three-year collaboration with Project STOP will focus on the regency of Jembrana, located on the northwest coast of Bali. The Alliance will support a feasibility study to achieve a future free of unmanaged plastic waste throughout the island and to assess how to extend the approach, as well as provide financial support and technical expertise.

“A recent study shows the island leaks 33,000 tons of plastic into the ocean every year,” the Alliance said in a statement. “A major challenge is the lack of appropriate waste management services to keep households and businesses from open burning or dumping waste into the environment. Stopping the leakage of plastics into the marine environment is critical to sustaining the island’s tourism industry, on which many lives and livelihoods depend. Jembrana is estimated to leak 13,200 tonnes of plastic into the environment each year, due to its population size and lack of waste and recycling infrastructure.”

Launched in 2017, Project STOP is an initiative co-founded by Borealis and SYSTEMIQ that designs, implements, and scales circular economy solutions to prevent plastic pollution in Southeast Asia. Working with companies, local governments and community groups, Project STOP supports cities with technical expertise to achieve zero leakage of waste, improve circular economy systems create new jobs in waste management, and reduce the harmful impact of mismanaged waste on public health, tourism and fisheries. Project STOP’s long-term ambition is to establish new solutions and models that can be rapidly scaled-up across the whole plastics chain, from the uses of plastic through to waste collection and recycling.

“The Alliance is focusing on areas where the need to improve the management of plastic waste is urgent and where our member companies across the plastic value chain can offer technical and business expertise,” David Taylor, Chairman of the Board, president and CEO of Procter & Gamble, and Chairman of the Alliance, said in the statement. “Project STOP therefore fits perfectly into the Alliance’s strategy that focuses on the four pillars infrastructure, innovation, education and clean up. In Jembrana, we have an opportunity to work with the local community to build new waste and recycling infrastructure to prevent plastic from leaking into the environment.”

The Alliance-funded city partnership in Jembrana is Project STOP’s first city partnership on the island of Bali. The project is designed to be economically self-sufficient within three years, so the system can be operated by the local municipality and community, both of which will be closely consulted and involved throughout the project.

The Alliance’s partnership with Project STOP will include the following activities:

• Conduct diagnostic studies to understand how and why plastic waste enters the environment and designing a new, tailored system to combat it.
• Build and supply equipment to scale up waste collection and sorting efforts.
• Hire local workers at living wages and responsible working conditions to manage and staff the new waste management system.
• Partner with local organizations to encourage behavior change at the community level through awareness and educational programs, so more people fully utilize the systems being created to dispose of waste.
• Clean up beaches and rivers in consultation with the local government.

The Alliance includes companies that make, use, sell, process, collect and recycle plastics, including chemical and plastic manufacturers, consumer goods companies, retailers, converters, and waste management companies. Member companies include BASF, Berry Global, Braskem, Chevron Phillips Chemical Co., Clariant, Covestro, Dow, Formosa Plastics Corp. USA, LyondellBasell, Nova Chemicals Corp., and Sabic.