Despite decades of concern and study, the problem of plastic spreading to every corner of the planet continues. In the last couple of years, pieces of plastic have been found on Everest, 29,000 feet above sea level, and at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, 36,000 feet down. It has become ubiquitous over the last 60 to 70 years, found in nearly every environment.
Given that a plastic bottle takes around 450 years to break down, the longer it takes to reduce the amount of plastic discarded annually, the greater the problem becomes. To date, approximately 8.3 billion tons of plastic exists globally, and 6.3 billion of that is trash. Single-Use Plastic (SUP) is one of the more significant issues and the focus of many measures that are being introduced internationally.
What are governments doing to reduce plastic waste?
Unfortunately, there aren't always viable alternatives to plastic. Governments have been trying to ban or at least limit the use of SUPs for years. Some countries have banned them outright, but the change is taking time. For example, at a recent UN Environment Assembly, a proposed phasing out of single-use plastic by 2025 was opposed by numerous countries, including the US. In the end, over 170 countries pledged to just 'significantly reduce' using plastic by 2030.
Another approach is that of the EU, which have established several environmental initiatives such as the Circular Economy Package and the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (PPWD). Here, the focus is on recycling, with a mandatory target of 30% recycled content in plastic packaging by 2030. This is in addition to the PPWD target of recycling 55% of plastic waste by 2030.
Only 9% of all plastic ever made has been recycled. Around 12% has been incinerated, and the remaining 79% has ended up in dumps or, more alarmingly, in rivers and oceans. As a result, an estimated 8 million tons of plastic end up in the oceans each year. Recycling and reusing this waste seems like an effective option, but uptake has been slow.
While governments are slowly bringing in schemes, smaller companies are now stepping in with solutions - some of which are using innovations and developments that weren't available before.
A great example of this is a company called Plastiks, which uses non-fungible tokens (NFT) to hold companies accountable and link plastic producers with recyclers. CEO and founder of Plastiks, André Vanyi-Robin, explains how the company and idea came about. "It all started in 2019 when I founded Nozama with the objective of becoming the largest sustainability technology company in the world.
"Nozama tracked kilogrammes of CO2 emitted, saved, and offset. This data is then transformed into marketing tools for our clients. This allowed companies to show their carbon commitments and appeal to the growing number of environmentally concerned customers. In addition, the success of this concept and the technology involved prepared us for a different challenge - to close the loop for plastic waste and encourage recycling before it was too late," Vanyi-Robin says.
"It is well known that plastic is everywhere now, and only a fraction is being recycled. The rest is dumped or ends up in the oceans. We wanted to incentivize recycling and have companies accountable for their waste."
Blockchain technology might hold the key to waste reduction
This led to the Plastiks platform, a blockchain-powered marketplace that links SUP producers and recyclers to ensure that plastic waste doesn't end up in the environment. "We are going to revolutionize two multibillion-dollar industries - recycling and NFT," Vanyi-Robin says.
"Our Plastiks platform uses blockchain to allow SUP recyclers to mint different plastic disposal certificates, similar to NFTs, which they can list on an open marketplace and sell to the highest SUP producer. This acts as a recycling guarantee and reassures consumers that plastic producing companies and corporations are being tracked and their products are not ending up in the environment."
There are several advantages to this approach for everyone involved. Recyclers will gain an additional revenue stream by commercializing their plastic certificates, and SUP producers will have a tangible way of showing customers their sustainability and commitment to the environment.
"We want to bring the producers and recyclers together by combining blockchain, NFTs and recycling. Our technology connects to existing information systems used by all parties to increase the transparency and traceability of single-use plastics. This means more money for recycling companies and greater marketing opportunities for the producers," Vanyi-Robin says.
"Every day, the global pressure to reduce plastic waste increases, and concerned consumers are opting for companies with better environmental credentials. Saying that, the number one winner here is undoubtedly our planet. We are fighting plastic with Plastiks."
It is certainly a novel approach, but it seems well-timed with mounting pressure from consumers, global UN initiatives, and entities like the EU bringing in laws requiring additional SUP tracking.
When it comes to the environment, everyone on the planet is a stakeholder. As a result, the pressure on SUP producers is mounting, with demands for more recycling and traceability coming from all sides. Hopefully, with the combined efforts from different actors and innovative solutions such as Plastiks, we will boost single-use plastic recycling transparency and traceability and win this battle.
