A team of almost 30 global companies from the plastics and consumer goods value chain launched the Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW) earlier in January, committing over $1 billion to advance solutions to eliminate plastic waste, mostly in the ocean environment. In this video, Martin Brudermüller, CEO of BASF, one of the co-founding companies, explains why the alliance is so important for managing plastic waste and promote post-use solutions.
Research by the Ocean Conservancy shows that plastics in the ocean predominantly originate from litter on land. Most of the plastic waste is spread through rivers and can be traced back to ten major rivers around the world, mainly in Asia and Africa. Once in the environment, it becomes difficult to capture.
In this regard, the companies have committed over $1.0 billion with the goal of investing $1.5 billion over the next five years to develop, deploy and bring to scale solutions that will minimize and manage plastic waste and promote post-use solutions, which may vary from recycling to reuse and repurposing of plastic to keep it out of the environment.
In this interview, Mr. Brudermüller answers the following questions:
- What are the goals of the AEPW?
- Why does BASF join the Alliance to End Plastic Waste?
- Why is the Alliance important to you?
- How/What will BASF contribute to the Alliance to End Plastic Waste?
BASF in particular actively supports the four focus areas of AEPW:
- Infrastructure development to collect and manage waste and increase recycling
- Innovation to advance and scale up new technologies that make recycling and recovering plastics easier and create value from post-use plastics
- Education and engagement of governments, businesses, and communities to mobilize action;
- Clean-up of concentrated areas of plastic waste in the environment, particularly the major conduits of waste, such as rivers, that carry land-based waste to the ocea