This Singapore-based NPO helping thousands of entrepreneurs generate wealth from waste

Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW) a Singapore-based industry-founded and funded non-governmental and non-profit organization is working to help entrepreneurs across the globe manage plastic waste. The Alliance has recently launched a private equity fund on plastic circularity, which is expect to have the first close at the beginning of next year. "We're looking at $500 million initially. We believe that our investment manager, who will be the decision maker, will be able to raise those funds. I think the biggest challenge right now is not necessarily raising financial resources. The biggest challenge is ensuring that there are sufficient investable and economically viable deals in the market," says Jacob Duer, president & CEO, AEPW, in an interview with Bizz Buzz.

Plastic is not biodegradable. So, how to bring it back into the economy?

If we look at India, the amount of plastic waste generated on an annual basis is 9.4 million tonnes and 40 per cent of that is currently estimated as being unmanaged. And unmanaged means that it ends up in the environment, can end up in rivers and oceans, ends up in open dump sites or it can even be burned. All that plastic has a significant value. And what we are working through the Alliance is to support efforts at the community level, at the municipality level to put in place infrastructure solutions.

We work with households, we are working towards household segregation. We are looking at supporting efforts in terms of waste collection, and ultimately bring it to a centralized sorting place so that the plastic waste and all the waste that has value is segregated from organic waste, and that valuable waste is brought back into the economy. We are looking at it from a recycling perspective that is through ideally mechanical recycling or potentially chemical recycling. Looking at the efforts in India, there are significant recycling facilities that are in place, but they are by no means enough.

What is lacking in India?

The technology does exist in different cities and in different communities. The biggest challenge for the recycling community today is to get access to the plastic waste independent of the quality but in a sorted way, so that it can be recycled in the most economical and ultimately with the highest economic output coming from it. In addition to managing the plastic waste in the environment, our focus is also on other use models. So, we are looking at reuse. We are looking at refill models, recognizing that beyond single-use plastic there are a lot of solutions that we need to build on and develop further.

Therefore, we are looking beyond plastic waste management and also at designing what we call 'designs for circularity'; that means we want to make sure that what goes into the market has the highest possible value at the end of its use. So, it will be automatically recovered and collected.

There is talk about using plastic waste for road construction? Where else can it be used?

Reuse and recycling are very important to us. Any plastic material that comes back is recycled. There are two main streams of recycling: one is what we call mechanical recycling, and the other one is chemical recycling. So, a lot of effort on mechanical recycling is there in India. The reuse depends on the plastic waste and the quality of the waste that comes out of the recycling. For instance, if we look at buttons, PET bottles, etc., that is a very high-quality plastic that can be reused multiple times.

You mentioned one of them is on roads. We know that there are efforts underway in India, where plastic waste is being pushed into the asphalt and being applied as part of building roads here. This is what I would say in the test phase.

We're also seeing efforts where plastic waste is being used in tiles, in the garment industry. So, the use of plastic waste or plastic that has been recycled from waste is really multi-fold. Many of the chairs that you see on the streets could easily be containing a significant percentage of plastic waste or recycled plastic waste.

What are the key projects of the Alliance?

India is a priority country for us and 20 per cent of our projects are in India. In India, we are currently running 11 projects in different parts of the country - Agra, Haridwar, Kolkata, Puduchhery, etc. We are in the process of formally establishing an office in India as well and, therefore, we are looking at growing our project portfolio.

The projects are focusing on different parts or different areas of the challenge. We do that through public-private partnerships. The aim is to divert more than 25,000 tonnes per year of plastic waste from the environment and recycle up to 25,000 tonnes per year. We strive to empower the huge network of informal supply chains (consisting of waste pickers, kabadiwalas, scrap dealers, recyclers, etc.) by focusing on holistic growth, development and prosperity of the waste sector workforce and drive a circular economy model in India.

We are working very much in the innovation space. We believe innovation in managing plastic waste and recycling is critical. So, we work with Indian startups. We incubate them and get them investment ready either for the Alliance of any other investor on the market, so innovation and new ideas is absolutely fundamental.

Are you financially helping entrepreneurs in the sector by way of PE funds or angel investing?

Of course! We're supporting and we're working with them. And we use the resources of the Alliance, which are grants or loans, to demonstrate solution models that are ultimately replicable or scalable, and then we work with development finance institutions. We work with private equity to link those solutions with where the financial resources are setting up.

The Alliance has recently launched a private equity fund on plastic circularity. We expect to have the first close at the beginning of next year. We're looking at $500 million initially. We believe that our investment manager, who will be the decision maker, will be able to raise those funds. I think the biggest challenge right now is not necessarily raising financial resources. The biggest challenge is ensuring that there are sufficient investable and economically viable deals in the market.

There is another issue of microplastics, the plastics which go into the soil. And there is also a fear that it will enter the food chain.

That's absolutely correct. We believe that the best solution is to prevent the leakage from the beginning of any plastic waste into the environment.

There is a lot of plastic pollution in our rivers. Is keeping rivers, oceans, and beaches clean also part of your mandate?

We believe it's very important to address the legacy plastic or the plastic that's sitting in the environment already. In addition to preventing the future leakage of plastic waste in the environment, I think we have the view that while cleanups are absolutely fundamental, it is not a long-term solution. The long-term solution lies in ensuring that there are proper integrated waste management systems in place. I would say, most importantly, spending effort and time on the longer-term solutions that prevents the future leakage.

How are you building a network of informal supply chains, because a lot of waste collection in India is unorganized. There are ragpickers, scrap dealers; all of them are scattered all over the localities.

We work through partners on the ground. Our project ReCity and rePurpose are all working directly with the informal waste collection sector and informal workers. They're working with the ragpickers.

So far, at least in India, saving the environment is the concern of NGOs. Some of them have their own agendas. Now what I understand what you're doing is that you're trying to make saving environment, a viable business proposition.

Absolutely! And I think while NGOs are playing a very important role here, I think it's also important to recognize that not only your government but governments around the world and businesses are equally committed to be part of creating solutions here. The Alliance is a business-led organization. So we have 73 members across the globe. Some of them are the largest corporations across the plastic value chain, and they're all committed to support innovation, development, solution creation and investment into the right solution at a scale that can stop the leakage of plastic waste into the environment and contribute to a circular economy.

What has been your sense of the programmes that the Central government has launched in India? What has been your experience in dealing with governments, central or state level?

I think we're very encouraged from what we're seeing coming out of the Central government. The Swachh Bharat Mission initially focused on addressing the issue of mismanaged garbage and sanitation. And later on, I would say we saw more focus on improving plastic waste management. I think we have also been encouraged by the EPR [Extended Producer Responsibility] regulations that have come out from the government, our conversations with recyclers.

So the official statements, claims and slogans have actually translated into action?

Absolutely! I think the biggest challenge that we're seeing is time, that it takes time to translate commitments into action. But here we are compared to some of the other development issues such as renewable energy; here the time has been a lot shorter [in comparison]. We are on the right track. I'm convinced that the government will continue to drive positive change and that it will be supported by innovation and investment.