What is the name of your organization?
UNSW Centre for Sustainable Development Reform
What is the name of your solution?
PlastiMap: Plastics Dashboard
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
An interactive dashboard of plastic management initiatives to enhance coordination, maximise impact, and strengthen environmental management.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Sydney NSW, Australia
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
Australia
What type of organization is your solution team?
Nonprofit
Film your elevator pitch.
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What specific problem are you solving?
The plastic problem extends beyond environmental damage to impact climate resilience, as mismanaged plastic waste clogs drainage systems during extreme weather events and threatens coastal ecosystems that serve as natural carbon sinks. Current practices such as open burning of plastic waste release harmful greenhouse gases, contributing to climate change while polluting local air quality.
Despite millions in funding from international donors, governments, private sector, and environmental groups, plastic waste management remains challenging due to fragmented and uncoordinated efforts, especially in developing countries. Many developing countries lack centralised system to track plastic management initiatives, resulting in:
• Fragmented, unreliable and inaccessible data on plastics and their related emissions, leading to national data gaps that hinder evidence-based decision making
• Duplicate projects targeting the same areas while others remain neglected
• Lack of knowledge sharing of successes and failures
• No mechanism to measure overall impact or progress
• Limited accountability for project outcomes
With the UN Global Plastics Treaty negotiations approaching, the need for data-driven decision-making is critical. Our recent National Forum on Plastics and Circular Economy in Sri Lanka (April 2025) confirmed this urgent need, bringing together over 150 participants from more than 30 organisations. There was a clear consensus on the need for improved coordination among stakeholders.
What is your solution?
PlastiMap is an interactive digital dashboard that maps and catalogues plastic management initiatives across a country. The platform includes:
1. A comprehensive database of plastic management projects, tracking location, focus area, data collected, funding sources, implementing partners, methodologies, outcomes, and lessons learned
2. GIS and remote sensing technology to map hotspots for plastic pollution and leakage. This will be combined with ecosystems mapping to identify ecosystems most vulnerable to plastic pollution and/or climate impacts, including coastal environments such as mangroves and seagrass beds
3. Data visualisation tools for data across the lifecycle of plastic which can be used to better understand the landscape of projects in a country, identify coverage patterns and gaps and inform the contributions of plastic to a country’s carbon budget—with the potential to include plastics-related emissions in a country’s national determined contributions (NDCs) for climate action.
4. A reporting mechanism for organisations to upload and update their project data and generate progress reports.
The dashboard serves as both a national monitoring tool for governments and a collaboration platform for stakeholders. Following our successful mapping workshop in Sri Lanka, PlastiMap will transform this fragmented information into an interactive platform that drives strategic resource allocation and accountability.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
PlastiMap serves governments, institutions, communities and other stakeholders in multiple countries (with a pilot in Sri Lanka) working to manage plastic, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition towards more circular economies.
Primary beneficiaries:
• Environmental ministries and government agencies: Will gain a comprehensive overview of all initiatives in their country, enabling evidence-based policymaking and strategic intervention planning. Our recent workshop in Sri Lanka demonstrated their eagerness for this solution.
• Environmental NGOs and community organisations: Will access data to identify underserved areas needing intervention and learn from similar projects, avoiding duplicated efforts.
• International donors and funders: Will direct resources more strategically to underfunded areas or approaches, maximising impact of limited resources.
Secondary beneficiaries:
• Local communities: Will benefit from better-coordinated plastic management efforts, reducing pollution in their local environments, improving health outcomes, and enhancing resilience to climate-related natural events.
• Marine ecosystems: Will benefit from more coordinated efforts to address plastic pollution, improving their ecological function including carbon sequestration in blue carbon habitats.
By providing a clear picture of the current global data landscape, the PlastiMap dashboard provides the foundation for local community, international organisations and government to make evidence-based decisions based on their unique circumstances and capacities.
