The President and CEO of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, Jacob Duer, shares key points about the many projects the organization supports for the global plastics ecosystem, as well as his perspectives on single-use plastics and the Global Plastics Treaty.
Packing World:
Can you talk a bit about your background and what led you to your leadership position at the Alliance to End Plastic Waste?
Jacob Duer:
My career has mainly focused on policy work, specifically around the environment and sustainable development, both of which are similar to the Alliance’s purpose of transforming the global plastics ecosystem.
For more than 20 years, I have worked at the United Nations (UN) in a variety of roles, including leading the Chemicals and Health Branch of the United Nations Environment Programme, the secretariat of the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM), and the intergovernmental negotiation process that led to the adoption and entry into force of the Minamata Convention on Mercury. which is a globally legally binding tool to combat mercury pollution.
The UN aims to address the world’s endemic challenges, from child literacy to food shortages. It also demonstrates that intergovernmental and commercial collaboration is the cornerstone for solving challenges. That’s why I joined the Alliance. I believe that only by engaging directly with the plastics price chain and leveraging the experience, knowledge and attitude of industries, governments, financial institutions, communities and civil society can we achieve a genuine and measurable effect in solving the problems. challenges. The challenge of plastic waste. Together, we can scale up innovative responses that are not only better for the environment, but also socially responsible and economically viable.
How did the Alliance come about? How has it been since its creation?
The Alliance is a global non-profit organization created in 2019 through business leaders committed to a project to end the entry of plastic waste into the environment. Today, we bring together more than 70 corporations along the plastic price chain, adding plastic manufacturers and users, as well as processors, packaging corporations, recyclers, and waste control corporations.
To advance our mission, we work with governments, industry, civil society, academia, development institutions, financial institutions, and others to design solutions, recycle, and introduce more circular models such as refill and reuse, and combine those solutions with infrastructure development and investment in technology and innovation.
In the Global South, billions of people continue to blatantly bury, sell, or burn their waste because they have little or no infrastructure and services to control it. In Southeast Asia, the Alliance is directly diverting surrounding plastic waste and landfills. Co-create built-in waste control responses with local governments to move communities up the waste control hierarchy.
In the Global North, much of our painting focuses on the innovation needed to create more circular plastic economies. This includes investing in smart waste sorting, incentivizing new responses to recycle a greater diversity of plastics, and expanding reusable packaging systems.
Think of the Alliance as a global laboratory that allows everyone to unabashedly share answers and lessons. In just over 3 years, we have supported more than 50 projects around the world, reducing more than 38,000 tons of unmanaged plastic waste. This is despite disruptions caused by the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.
What is the Alliance’s position on plastics, on single-use plastic packaging?
Plastic lifecycle measures are imperative and urgent to achieve a circular plastics economy. The truth is that plastic is a ubiquitous element in fashion life and serves in must-have sectors such as medical packaging and food safety. It is the increasing prevalence of single-use plastics and their tendency to be discarded after a short period of use, combined with poor control of the resulting waste, that poses demanding situations that the Alliance seeks to address.
We’re looking for answers that come with design for reuse and recyclability, supporting clear labeling on recycling-related packaging, and educating consumers on how to recycle properly. The Alliance also supports projects on reuse and recharge models, which will reduce single-use plastics.