Colombian Plastics Pact: a Circular Economy for Plastics

The rapid growth of plastic packaging in Colombia requires an innovative & transformative, systemic response, enabling an agile solution to prevent escalating environmental challenges. The current make-use-dispose system results in a loss of valuable materials, a growing burden of unrecyclable waste plastics and a lost opportunity for creating jobs and infrastructure in waste management & recycling.

A Colombian Plastics Pact will adapt WRAP’s proven Voluntary Agreement approach (UK, Europe, US, Chile, Malaysia and South Africa) to convene local brands & retailers to collaborate on transforming the plastics system and ensuring plastic waste stays in the economy and never enters the environment. The Plastics Pact has ambitious, time-bound targets; a practical, action-orientated approach and a clear reporting and tracking of progress.

Our project will benefit communities in Colombia by improving the local natural environment and help develop sustainable, long term employment opportunities in waste collection, management & recycling.

Colombia has a population of 48.2m, which has doubled in the last 60 years. 80% of people now live in cities and towns. This demographic shift has meant a change in lifestyles and consumption, resulting in a growth of plastic items consumed and waste plastics generated. While some waste plastic is recycled, the majority is disposed of in an uncontrolled manner, often leaking into the natural environment, waterways and rivers. Colombia’s Magdalena River, which connects to the Caribbean, is considered one of the 20 most polluted rivers in the world.

While Colombia has a vibrant informal waste picking system employing 60,000 people in valuable jobs, recycling is focused on a few formats/polymers. Even the ‘best’ PET bottles only achieve 30% recycling. The challenge is that much of the plastic waste is either:

• Unnecessary: items that could be avoided through elimination or reuse/refill systems.
• Unrecyclable: designed with no thought of recycling e.g. polymers that cannot be recycled.
• Problematic: economically, environmentally or technically

Without a collaborative and systemic shift, waste plastics will continue to grow, impacting on the environment and economy. Without the infrastructure, legislation & governance to properly tackle plastic waste, a business led initiative can be a solution.

Plastic waste blights a whole country and the Colombian Plastics Pact (CPP) will benefit citizens across Colombia. It will transform the plastics system to enable citizens to live more sustainable lives through their behaviour – reducing unnecessary plastics, encouraging reuse & stimulating a stronger recycling economy. Reducing waste plastics entering the environment will benefit Colombia’s tourism, & fishing sectors.

 Key beneficiaries of the CPP will be the 60,000 people who work as informal waste pickers. Their work is dirty, tough, and pickers have to work long hours to earn a living. The CPP will help grow & formalise this sector by encouraging businesses to design more recyclable packaging through ambitious targets and clear guidance, allowing the waste pickers to recycle more packaging, more economically. We will work with the associations to explore how workers roles can be more dignified & safer e.g. by providing training in entrepreneurship, as well as uniforms & equipment.

The CPP will work with citizens to encourage more recycling and will work to support greater investment in the recycling sector in Columbia. It will also support the Colombian government to deliver the Circular Economy Strategy included in the country´s development plan.

The Colombian Plastics Pact (CPP) is a framework for action that will bring together the plastic packaging value chain with a clear vision and commitment to cut plastic waste, drive circularity in plastic packaging and reduce the use of single-use plastics. It will help lead to a transformation in the design of plastic packaging, boost the recycling sector & create more jobs in the informal and formal waste sector. It will impact millions of citizens’ lifestyles through reduced use of unnecessary plastics and an improved environment.

A Plastics Pact delivers change through a powerful combination of 3 elements:

• Collaboration: sharing & embedding best practice & processes in the system.
• Innovation: developing creative solutions to major, sectoral challenges on plastics.
• Accountability: timebound, ambitious, publicly reported targets.

Our approach will bring together businesses who produce packaging (retailers, brands, suppliers), and collect & recycle packaging waste. A Pact will provide a powerful platform for collaboration and action across all stakeholders, ensuring systemic change that will deliver positive impact for the environment of Colombia.

The CPP will be based on the UK Plastics Pact (UKPP), launched by WRAP in partnership with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF), in April 2018, as the first of a global network of Plastics Pacts. The UKPP has already demonstrated progress, including tackling 1bn problematic and unnecessary single-use plastics items, stimulating more reuse models, phasing out of unrecyclable plastics and growing the market for recycled plastics. Other Pacts have launched (Chile, France, Netherlands) or are in development (South Africa, Australia, Malaysia & European-wide pact). Our project will build on the momentum of the Chilean Plastics Pact and support Colombia to join the global network. The network will enable efficient sharing of best practice, solutions & resources between countries sharing similar challenges.

Working with local partners, WRAP will convene key actors from business, government & NGOs to agree a set of measurable targets & actions to increase the collection & recycling of plastic & to reduce single-use plastics, leading to adoption of more sustainable practices for business.

The CPP will deliver change by convening businesses, retailers & key stakeholders to agree to national, timebound targets:

• Tackle unnecessary & problematic single-use plastic packaging

• Ensure 100% of plastic packaging is reusable, recyclable or compostable

• Significantly increase the collection & recycling of plastic packaging

• Increase recycled content in plastic packaging to drive demand for recycled material.

A Plastics Pact is a new and innovative solution that addresses the root cause of plastic pollution in the oceans and environment, by creating a circular economy where plastic is valued as a material and never becomes waste.

Underpinned by WRAP’s ground-breaking research and over 20 years of working on plastics, our solution helps develop methods for ensuring plastic never enters the environment. Plastic Pacts drive systemic change by securing board level commitment from organisations to deliver reaching targets and measure success by working collaboratively.

Plastics Pacts are based on WRAP’s innovative voluntary agreement (VA) approach, first used to tackle food waste; the UK’s Courtauld Commitment was the first example of businesses and government working together, delivering real impact.

The VA approach is the only evidenced based approach that brings transformative, wide reaching, long term systemic change, delivering positive impacts for the environment and society in both developed and developing economies. Our solution is innovative in bringing together the major businesses to work in partnership to achieve shared targets in a pre-competitive collaboration. Businesses take responsibility for implementing changes in their processes and are held to account through public reports of the progress against targets.

The first Plastics Pact was launched in UK in April 2018 and since then Plastics Pacts have been launched (or are in process of development) in Chile, South Africa, Malaysia, Australia, Netherlands, France and Canada. This global network enables greater collaboration and sharing of innovations and guidance. 

WRAP’s expertise lies in the research that provides the evidence for our approaches. We started work on recycling plastics in 2000 and our world-renowned work has led to a number of major changes in the plastics recycling sector, including a decoupling of packaging growth from sales growth and a transformation in how plastic is designed, collected, recycled and reused.

We also know from our food waste VAs that this approach is effective in delivering change; the extensive number of retailers, food producers and major brands committing to make radical changes to the way they do business is an innovative approach that has helped the UK to cut food waste by 19% since 2007. Similar food VAs are being developed in Mexico the US and South Africa.

Our experience of establishing effective VAs in multiple countries has shown that good projects must follow core principles. These principles ensure a consistent focus and approach across multiple agreements, whilst allowing for flexibility to reflect the local context. They are:

•           Involving government, business, agencies and civil society to co-create the agreement.

•           Establishing ambitious targets appropriate to the industries, adaptable to local context, and which deliver measurable results.

•           Establishing a governance structure which holds participants to account.

•           Identifying what will have the biggest impact and co-creating a roadmap that delivers this impact.

•           Using a robust framework to measure annually, and publicly report, progress.

•           Identifying and proposing policies which enable us to achieve the targets.

Our UK Plastics Pact is currently working with 120 signed-up, businesses or supporting organisation members in the UK, representing over 85% of all the plastics packaging on UK supermarket products. The members also represent thousands of employees and suppliers. The business-led actions and campaigns delivered by the UK Plastics Pact members have impacted thousands of product lines and ultimately touched the lives and actions of millions of UK consumers, through the products they buy and actions they take (e.g. reusing or recycling more).

The Plastics Pacts launched or being developed will have similar impacts in South Africa, Malaysia, Chile, etc. 

A Colombian Plastics Pact will encourage plastic supply chain stakeholders to take action towards a number of defined targets. Reporting and monitoring against the targets is a central pillar to a Pact. Participating businesses must report their actions and plastic packaging data annually. From a starting baseline to be measured in year one, Pact signatories (both business and government) will annually report progress against the 4 key targets of the CPP.

The progress report from the UK Plastics Pact shows businesses have taken thousands of actions to support the targets – eliminating products, redesigning, changing specifications, communicating to citizens. The UKPP has also helped stimulate £100m investment in new UK recycling infrastructure, enabling 240kT of plastics to be recycled.

The benefits arising from a Plastics Pact include:

• Environmental:
  • Reduction in plastic waste as a result of eliminating problematic items and increase in reuse
  • Less leakage of waste plastics into the natural environment.
  • GHG reductions are expected through reductions in plastic generation, plastic waste prevention and increased use of recycled plastics in products.
  • Reduced reliance on virgin plastics.
• Social:
  • Engagement with communities and citizens of Colombia on the plastics waste issue and the positive contribution that their actions can make.
• Economic:
  • Increase in plastics collection and focus on recyclability will boost the Colombian waste collection sector with increased jobs, mostly in informal waste picking sector.
  • Demand for recycled materials (an anticipated target) will boost investment in recycling and manufacturing sector.
  • Cleaner environment will help tourism.

WRAP’s long-term goal is to help deliver Sustainable Development Goal 12.5 – By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and re-use. Plastics Pacts are key to achieving this; our goal is to work with global partners to launch Plastics Pacts in more low-income countries, especially those responsible for high levels of plastic pollution.

Our goal for 2020 is to secure funding to launch a Colombian Plastics Pact, putting Colombia on the trajectory to delivering SDG 12.5.

Over the next 5 years, we aim to support other Latin America & Caribbean countries to join Chile & Colombia in tackling plastic waste via a voluntary agreement with governments and businesses. We plan to create a network for the region, enabling efficient sharing of best practice, solutions & resources between countries sharing similar challenges. The Chilean and Colombian Plastics Pact will act as a ‘lighthouses’ for other Pacts in Latin America and the Caribbean to follow; e.g. by engaging with the Pacific Alliance of Chile, Peru, Colombia & Mexico.

The network could involve an All-Americas Plastics Conference to share learnings from Chile, Colombia, the UK & other Pacts with Latin American and Caribbean nations, e.g. Argentina, Ecuador & Pacific Alliance of Peru, & Mexico, plus the US & Canada, encouraging replication of Pacts & maximising environmental impact by supporting hundreds of businesses, and reaching millions of people. It could join the European Plastics Pact (being developed by WRAP) in acting as a model for multinational regional approach to plastic waste.

Developing economies such as Colombia face a particular challenge in self-starting voluntary agreements like Plastics Pacts. With many issues competing for limited government funding & limited track record of taking collaborative action, this action is unlikely to be adopted without external support.

We know that voluntary agreements are cost effective ways of delivering against multiple policy objectives, however, the overall funding requirement is high and could potentially be spread across multiple government departments making it difficult to secure this type of funding.

Businesses can be wary about working with government, and the government may doubt the impact of a voluntary agreement, seeing legislation as a more effective way to change processes.  Businesses in Colombia have strong influence on government; a ban on single-use plastics was unsuccessful due to the influence of companies who produce these products.

There is low interest in sustainable habits in Colombia; young people are more willing to recycle the recycling rate in Colombia is 17%.

The recycling infrastructure in Colombia is under-developed and whilst transformation infrastructure is emerging, companies who transform waste into new materials need investment and technical assistance.

The current waste collection system is dependent on informal pickers, who often have complex social issues. There are no circular economy standards for public waste service and regulatory framework is poorly focused; public waste actors obtain income from tons of waste (mixed) collected.

Some rural areas do not have access to any waste collection with waste often being burnt or thrown into rivers and oceans. 

WRAP’s experience shows that if countries receive assistance & funding to kick-start a VA, governments & business are motivated to continue to develop & grow the agreement beyond the initial start-up funding.  As a charity, WRAP is continually seeking funding to help governments, businesses and citizens to reduce their waste and adopt resource efficient approaches that will benefit society and the environment.

The OECD found that a collaborative approach can be more effective than legislation because it is quicker to implement, more able to respond to changing market dynamics, more likely to gain a positive reaction from business and avoids expensive enforcement costs.

We know that involving businesses early in the processes ensures buy-in and commitment. We will demonstrate the positive benefits businesses are experiencing in other countries by being Plastics Pact members, and show the clear business case in terms of leadership, positive PR, access to insights and expertise etc.

A CPP will create an economic demand for recycled material, driving investment in recycling facilities. This will be enabled by sector engagement and working with the key waste and recycling sector organisations. The UK has seen 4 new plants commissioned since the launch of the UKPP.

Manufacturers will be compelled to produce plastic items which can easily and cost-effectively be recycled. This is the essence of the circular economy for plastics which provides for long term economic sustainability.

The CPP members will help inform customers about recycling, and raise awareness of the impacts and benefits of sustainable habits.

The Chilean Plastics Pact has over 20 major business members from across the plastics value chain. It also has many key organisations as supporters e.g. retailer associations. The Chilean Government is a strong supporter too.

The Chilean Plastics Pact has 4 key targets to 2025 which are aligned to the UK Plastics Pact and has also recently published a Roadmap for Delivery to articulate how the targets will be met. They have established key working groups and have also commissioned an organisation to develop the reporting and monitoring framework. They have run a number of workshops, and seminars with their members to agree priorities and actions for the first phase of the Plastics Pact.

WRAP supported the Chilean Plastics Pact throughout its development.  See section below for more details.

WRAP employs 180 people in total. In the WRAP Global team there are 3 internationally recognised experts in this field working full time on Plastics Pacts globally with a further 6 people working partly on this programme.  We deliver our programmes by working with partners in the host countries.

The team is supported by wider resources in research and evaluation, finance, communications and fundraising. 

WRAP has extensive experience of running voluntary agreements, delivering significant impact helping prevent millions of tonnes of waste and helping increase recycling by tens of millions of tonnes. Our work has achieved international recognition; the Courtauld Commitment won the P4G State-of-the Art Partnership of the Year award in 2018.  

The team is led by David Rogers, who leads WRAP’s international work on plastics and textiles including developing a global network of Plastics Pacts. David is a leading international expert in public / private collaboration, leading the development of collaborative agreements on food, plastics and textiles in the UK, Netherlands, Germany, Malaysia, South Africa and Chile. David has also worked on development of UK recycling infrastructure for plastics and renewable energy in support of a circular economy. 

Peter Skelton led the development, business recruitment and launch of The UK Plastics Pact. He now works with global partners to initiate and support Plastics Pacts in key markets. Peter has a wide knowledge of packaging related issues (recyclability guidance, biopolymers, on-pack recycling label, recycled content, optimisation) and extensive experience of engaging businesses.

Norah Lewis specialises in resource-efficient business models and circular design for packaging and electricals. She works with numerous organisations, ensuring they remain resilient in a volatile landscape, addressing real challenges and creating substantial changes in adoption of circular economy business models. Norah has worked on NIR detectability of plastic packaging at the end-of-life for the UKPP, in addition to developing a tool to determine suitable materials alternatives for certain plastics.

WRAP’s strength lies in our technical expertise and our partnerships; we work with local organisations, ensuring projects benefits from local knowledge and relationships required to contextualise our methodology and deliver a successful VA.  Building the capability of local partners enhances the scalability of VAs, ensuring our proven approach is coupled with expertise on the local contexts, enabling partners to build the scope and scale over time.  

We work closely with Fundación Chile (FCh), who are managing and delivering the Chilean Plastics Pact. Support includes:

• Sharing set up documents and learnings/insights from UK.
• Supporting development of a reporting process for Chile.
• Delivering in-depth workshops / training sessions with FCh and businesses (Santiago Oct 2019)

WRAP works in partnership with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to develop and launch a global network of plastic pacts.

WRAP partners with WWF in many countries, including South Africa and Malaysia where we partner in developing Plastics Pacts. We are exploring further collaborations in Asia with WWF and are currently talking to funders  to expand Plastics Pacts in Africa.

We work closely with the businesses of our Plastics Pacts. These include international brands e.g. Nestle, Unilever, Coca Cola, Tesco, Walmart etc. 

Tackling plastic packaging is increasingly being seen as a ‘license to operate’ issue by major retailers and brands. Public concern with over-use of plastic packaging and resultant pollution is changing consumer expectations and businesses have to respond around the world.

Business members of Plastics Pacts will see economic benefits by committing to a circular model for plastics. Bringing together businesses from the whole supply chain enables us to address the root causes of waste rather than just focussing on one element and causing unintended, negative effects somewhere else; changing packaging from plastic to other materials is only beneficial if those materials don’t have negative environmental impacts themselves.  E.g. paper bags are single use and can have a higher carbon footprint than plastic.

The tangible changes or commitments that the project will deliver will include:

• Reduction in the amount of unnecessary or problematic packaging or plastic items used or provided with the benefit of less litter and leakage into the environment.
• Retailers, brands and fast food businesses committed to design, specify and procure plastic packaging that meet the targets (recyclable, reusable and with recycled content where possible).
• Agreement by major retailers to adopt consistent on-pack recycling and disposal labelling.
• Proposal for new models for recycling more consumer plastic (including at retail stores).
• Community and citizen engagement programme will be scoped and developed.

Financial sustainability is built into the Plastics Pact model; all business participants contribute to the costs of delivery (on a sliding scale relating to sales turnover) on the basis that contributions from the private and public sectors help to leverage each other. 

Securing start-up funding to support the development, planning and launch of a voluntary agreement (including a Plastics Pact) is the hurdle for many countries, particularly in emerging economies where government funding may not be available. Across the world, WRAP actively seeks start-up funding for voluntary agreements which could be funded by a number of different organisations, including national governments, trusts and foundations, international bodies (e.g. UN Environment). government overseas development funds and businesses.

Once the development, recruitment and launch activities have been undertaken (usually taking 8-15 months), then the Plastics Pact business contributions can cover a significant proportion of the operational delivery costs. It is for the development and start-up phase that WRAP is seeking funding for Colombia and potentially elsewhere in Latin America.

As a registered charity, WRAP is continually seeking funding from trusts and foundations, businesses and other organisations to support our work in creating a resource efficient world.

The funding from the Rethink Plastics Challenge will be key in helping WRAP develop relationships with businesses and government in Colombia as the first step of setting up a Colombian Plastics Pact. There is a lot of focus on tackling Plastics in Asia and Europe from governments, NGOs and other organisations but less so in Latin America and the Caribbean. The unique challenges of the large distances as well as competing economic demands and issues, means that support is needed to ‘kick-start’ Plastics Pacts. WRAP anticipates having a Colombian and Chilean Plastics Pact will help unlock initiatives in Mexico, Brazil and elsewhere.

Face-to-face meetings are vital to building the relationships required for successful voluntary agreements, therefore funding to cover travel costs for WRAP are vital.

Support from the IDB Group would be invaluable to WRAP in developing relationships with key stakeholders in Colombia, and the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean. Our aim is that the CPP is co-owned by the government and businesses and political championing from IDB will be vital in achieving this.  

IDB could also add value by helping us convene and network with business leaders who could either support the CPP (e.g. by advocating for policies that enable favourable market conditions) or be potential replicators of the model in new regions, increasing impact globally by matching known solutions to new market opportunities.

We would also welcome support in pitching to investors and other potential funders (philanthropic, institutional, and corporate) in order to secure long term funding for the partnership and introducing us to people and organisations who could help us think about how to make the partnership financially self-sustaining in the longer term.  While WRAP and our partners have a significant network, the profile and additional influence of IDB will be beneficial in opening doors that we cannot do alone and in helping us to think about the financial model for a voluntary agreement in a different way.

WRAP are always seeking local organisation to partner with us; our strengths lie in our partnerships with organisations across the world. In-country delivery partners are vital to understanding local context and ensuring approaches are appropriate.

WRAP would partner with Triciclos for the initial project phase, as they have excellent local knowledge, expertise and contacts. Triciclos have a deep understanding of the Plastics Pact model as they were instrumental in helping establish the Chilean Plastics Pact. Other partners will be sought and established during the first phase of developing the case for the Columbian Plastics Pact.  We would welcome support identifying and connecting with these organisations.