Test-bedding solutions for change

We develop, de-risk and demonstrate solutions to drive change

We develop, de-risk and demonstrate solutions to address the plastic waste challenge

We seek opportunities to fill crucial gaps in research, waste management or recycling that will give a boost in their local or regional context. Since we began, we've supported over 80 projects worldwide to help end plastic waste and transition towards a circular economy for plastic.

Explore some of our projects

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Let’s Transform: Improving lives and building waste management businesses in India

The Let’s Transform initiative tackles both environmental and social concerns in India by helping to build ethical supply chains and improving the lives and livelihoods of waste entrepreneurs and informal waste workers, while also diverting low value plastics from landfills and water bodies.

October 1, 2024

JingSu: Creating value from plastic waste along the Yangtze

The JingSu project helps reduce the flow of plastic waste into the Yangtze River by collecting, sorting, and recycling the growing volume of single-use food and beverage containers, increasing the scope of what is considered recyclable.

October 1, 2024

Scaling community-based collection with Mr Green Africa

Scaling community-based plastic waste collection, the project aims to enhance capabilities in the region to produce high-quality recyclates and unlock value from hard-to-recycle plastic waste.

July 30, 2024

Inkwazi Isu

In a country where waste management is hindered by limited and unequally distributed resources, the South African Healthcare Foundation brings the public and private sectors together in a coordinated effort to divert plastic waste. The four-year programme will fund upgrades of sorting, education for the community, and the establishment of an innovation hub.

July 30, 2024

Plastic Cycle: Improving income and working conditions of informal waste workers in Vietnam

Over 90% of plastic waste in Vietnam are collected by informal waste pickers. Despite their crucial role, they often operate without any significant support. Read about the project aimed at improving their income and working conditions.

July 30, 2024

BVRio: A cooperative approach to waste management

From malls and supermarkets to hospitals and condominiums, waste cooperative Coopama has confidently grown its reach and plastic recovery rate in Rio de Janeiro through an Alliance-funded pilot to increase its capacity. More capital has since flowed into the initiative, sustaining its impact.

July 30, 2024

Paving Green Roads out of difficult-to-recycle plastics

The Alliance is collaborating with universities and research institutes in India, Singapore and Thailand on the research and development of incorporating difficult-to-recycle plastic waste into asphalt roads. The in-field monitoring has concluded in Singapore and Thailand, while the trials for India will be under way in 2024.

July 30, 2024

CRDC South Africa: A concrete solution to the plastic waste problem

At the Center for Regenerative Design and Collaboration (CRDC Global), plastic waste is regenerated into a high-value construction material, RESIN8.

July 30, 2024

Prayaash strengthens waste workers for zero waste Nepal

The Alliance-backed Prayaash initiative pilots solutions that tap and grow Nepal’s informal waste collection network, while creating the necessary infrastructure to divert waste away from landfills and towards recycling.

December 15, 2023

SEArcular Tackles Ocean Bound Plastic Packaging Waste | AEPW

SEArcular Ocean Bound Plastic incentivised locally-run waste collection centres and waste pickers to collect flexible plastic packaging waste in Gresik, Indonesia, keeping them out of water bodies and bringing them into circularity.

December 15, 2023

Collect, Certify, Circulate

In Marilao, the Collect, Certify, Circulate programme has effectively diverted plastic waste away from landfills and water bodies, and towards co-processing or recycling, including by roping in women micro-entrepreneurs as waste warriors.

December 12, 2023

Aviral - Reducing Plastic Waste in Ganga

The Aviral pilot programme is tackling plastic waste in India’s holiest – and most polluted – river at source, creating alternative pathways for used plastics in the cities of Haridwar and Rishikesh, and offering a waste management model that can be scaled across north India.

December 12, 2023

Greenback Valorises Flexibles with Chemical Recycling | AEPW

Our partnership with Greenback in Cuautla, Mexico, helps close the loop for film and flexible plastics by leveraging an innovative process that transforms them into pyrolytic oil, which can be used in the production of food-grade plastic packaging.

November 9, 2023

CURB: Clean UnHas River Bound

A student committee from Universitas Hasanuddin is deploying locally-designed trash traps along South Sulawesi’s key rivers to reduce plastic leakage into the sea, redirecting it towards recycling, while also rallying surrounding communities on the responsible use and disposal of plastic waste.

September 22, 2023

Closing the Gap with Reclaimers

In South Africa, informal waste pickers or “reclaimers” remain largely invisible, despite being critical contributors to waste management. Johannesburg-based African Reclaimers Organisation has been working to change this through uniting 6,000 reclaimers under a single umbrella.

July 6, 2023

Changemakers: Youth-led action against plastic waste

In India, a new generation of eco-warriors is taking the future into its hands – starting with responsible plastic waste management. SOCEO’s educational programme has engaged over 45,000 students on the role they play in addressing plastic waste pollution in the region.

July 6, 2023

Eco Digiclean Klongtoei: Connecting residents with recyclers

In central Bangkok’s Klongtoei district, the Recycle Market app is connecting players in the district’s recycling ecosystem. From residents through to recyclers, plastic waste is purchased and delivered on demand. Some 2,000 residents are participating in the Eco Digiclean Klongtoei pilot, where the app issues credits for deposited waste, and can be redeemed for cash.

July 6, 2023

Megloo Re-use and POOL Recycling System

Japan ranks among the largest producers of plastic waste in the world, and the nation’s culture of innovation is helping it solve this problem. Through our incubation programme with Plug and Play, the End Plastic Waste Innovation Platform, two of 11 winning initiatives have become part of the Alliance’s portfolio of solutions: Megloo Re-use and POOL Recycling System.

July 6, 2023

The Incubation Network

The Circulate Initiative and SecondMuse have concluded a three-year project aimed at supporting innovations that could advance plastic waste management in Asia. The project supported more than 350 startups, targeting early-stage and pre-investment solutions. With US$2.3 million in funding, some 42,000 tons of plastic waste was diverted from the environment.

July 6, 2023

Partnership with LOVERE

Instead of serving drinks and snacks, special machines in Chinese cities are taking in plastic waste and dispensing circularity. Building on LOVERE’s model to place smart bins across several districts in the dynamic city of Shanghai, the goal is to more than double recycling rates in Chengdu and Xi’an from 15% to 35%.

July 6, 2023

Piloting recycling habits through GIRO Argentina

In five neighbourhoods in the Argentinian city of Olavarría, bags of unsorted waste have become a much less common sight. Instead, almost half the residents and businesses separate their waste before putting it out on designated collection days. With the success of its pilot, Delterra is now rolling out its GIRO Argentina model to 120,000 residents. Olavarría is now on its way to becoming a city with one of the highest recycling rates in Latin America.

July 6, 2023

Cidades: Bringing recycling to the community

Recicleiros, in partnership with the Alliance, has started up 14 sorting centres as cooperatives in small to medium-sized cities in Brazil, bringing recycling to these communities for the first time. The project is creating new jobs and connecting various players along the value chain, laying the pathway for an inclusive, high-impact, and economically viable system.

July 6, 2023

Flexible Plastic Waste Recycling in Kenya

Following a successful six-month collaboration in 2022, Taka Taka and the Alliance are now embarking on a more ambitious undertaking: to put into place a sustainable recycling solution for flexible plastics. In salvaging flexible plastic waste and returning it to the production cycle, the material can be diverted away from the Dandora landfill – one of Africa’s largest dumpsites.

March 17, 2023

ParikraM

The ParikraM initiative plugs the gap between collection and recycling with the right processing and sorting infrastructure, and technology solutions that optimise operations and enable materials traceability across the value chain.‍Achieved- Waste diverted (early impact): more than 1,500MT, exceeding the 1,000MT target- Waste diverted (primary project): 5,000MT (target 5,000MT by July 2023)

March 17, 2023

Ocean Stewards

Through a new generation of student eco-influencers, the Ocean Stewards Educational Programme aims to reshape community attitudes and actions around plastic waste reduction, collection, and recycling.

February 16, 2023

Buat Bumi: Creating value from hard-to-recycle plastic waste

Piloting an operating model to incentivise collection and create value from hard-to-recycle plastic waste for local shops and households, where hard-to-recycle plastic waste is collected and exchanged for groceries.

February 14, 2023

Bersih Indonesia: Eliminasi Sampah Plastik

One of the most ambitious waste management projects is underway in Indonesia. The aspiration is to bring together the municipal and national governments, expertise and funds from the private sector, and the participation of local communities in a coordinated push to transform the waste management landscape.

May 30, 2022

Firstar Fiber: Making hard-to-recycle plastic circular

Firstar Fiber (Firstar) is a leading provider of recycling services across several Midwestern states, processing and marketing close to 120,000 tons per year of a wide variety of materials, including hard-to-recycle plastics like bags and films. It has collected difficult-to-recycle plastic waste from participating households (e.g. candy wrappers, chip packets, juice pouches) since 2018 with the Hefty Renew™ program.

November 23, 2021

Closing the Loop with ASASE Foundation

In our project with the ASASE Foundation, we aim to create new circular recycling businesses in Accra, Ghana, thereby helping vulnerable communities earn new income by closing the loop.

November 18, 2021

Circulaire Abidjan

Abidjan, Ivory Coast, is home to 4.5 million people that generate around 1.25 million tons of waste a year. Our project, Circulaire Abidjan or Circular Abidjan, aims to make collecting that waste accessible, while creating value for the community.

October 26, 2021

End Plastic Waste Innovation Platform

Ideas come from anywhere in the world. That’s why we partnered with Plug and Play Tech Center in 2019 to develop the End Plastic Waste Innovation Platform—to foster startups from across the plastic value chain, and transform plastic waste management around the world. In February 2020, we kickstarted the first Selection Day with 10 finalists in our inaugural Silicon Valley hub.

October 26, 2021

Center for Regenerative Design and Collaboration

CRDC aims to end plastic waste through regenerative design. With our support, CRDC turns hard-to-recycle plastic into a concrete additive called RESIN8, to reclaim the value of plastic waste.

October 26, 2021

Basisa Bazaruto

Basisa Bazaruto, which means Clean Bazaruto, is our project in partnership with African Parks. Nestled on Mozambique’s southern coastline, the Bazaruto Archipelago National Park is home to over 2,000 marine species, including the last viable population of dugongs in the Western Indian Ocean.

October 22, 2021

Project STOP Jembrana

The Jembrana regency—where hilly jungles full of life meet beautiful beaches on Bali’s northwest coast—is often touted as a hidden gem. The Ijo Gading River that runs through the regency is the island’s largest ocean plastic contributor, accounting for 12% of Bali’s plastic waste leakage. On its banks are the Jembrana and Negara subdistricts, home of our first Indonesian programme.

September 23, 2021

Planks of Promise: Scaling the collection and recycling of hard-to-recycle plastics

Planks of Promise aims to help scale the collection and recycling of plastic waste from around Manila—including hard-to-recycle plastics like sachets and films—supporting our partner, The Plastic Flamingo. Our first project in the Philippines, Planks of Promise works to turn plastic waste from the Metro Manila area into recyclable plastic planks that will then be made into emergency shelters for Filipinos displaced by the natural disasters in the region.

September 22, 2021

HolyGrail 2.0: Digital watermarking technology

Starting at Copenhagen’s Amager Resource Center in Denmark, we have partnered with AIM, the European Brands Association, to trial newly developed sorting units at semi-industrial scale. The objective is to assess the technical and economic viability of digital watermarks and their positive impact on increasing the recycling of plastic packaging.

September 5, 2021