Sustainable Plastics - March/April 2022 - 18

Q&A
continued from page 17
approach also allows us the opportunity
to promote the sharing
of knowledge across teams
and geographies.
Our extensive work and firm
belief in behaviour change, to
encourage and ensure all generators
of waste are adequately
separated at source, is another
factor that sets us apart in my
view. Delterra's programmes
both in Argentina and Indonesia
have shown that investments
promoting recycling behaviour
can be repaid within five years,
solely from increased recyclables
sales as a result of proper waste
separation, and in only two-tofour
years, with landfill cost savings
and environmental credits
also considered. The alternative
is investing in technology that
either separates or treats contaminated
waste. Although this
option may seem more appealing,
as it is quicker to implement
compared to behaviour change,
it always results in higher costs
and reduced positive social and
environmental impacts. This information
can be found in our latest
report Making 'Cents' of Recycling
Behavior: The Return on
Investment of Spreading the Recycling
Habit, which was co-authored
by The Circulate Initiative.
Can you talk about the progress/impact
you've made so
far?
In 2021, we diverted 750+ tons
(1.5+ million pounds) of waste
(recyclables and organics). The
" A Todo Reciclaje " program, our
pilot in an informal settlement
in the centre of Buenos Aires,
has transitioned this 40,000
people community from having
no recycling participation (no
separation at source), and no
integrated waste management,
to having among the highest
recycling recovery rates in the
country for both recyclables and
organics over a relatively short
three-year time frame.
Overall, we have upskilled
and improved the livelihoods of
some 450 waste workers, many
of whom previously worked as
informal waste pickers, with unsafe
working conditions, unreliable
income, and lack of access
to healthcare. Creating better
and greener jobs, especially for
more vulnerable communities,
is a first-tier priority for gov18
March/April
2022
ernments, especially in a postCOVID-19
world that requires
economic stimulus within even
tighter public budgets.
As informal waste management
is often populated by
more vulnerable groups, such
as women and undocumented
immigrants, we often find
ourselves disproportionately
improving the work lives of
such groups.
With 2025 looming ahead,
what needs to happen in
order to meet the targets
and commitments made by
so many businesses, corporations
and even countries
around the world?
While we are seeing an increasing
number of positive targets
overall, there is still margin
for improving how these targets
are coherent with each other
and if / how they can be integrated.
To provide a very basic
example, a company producing
PET products will likely, and understandably,
prioritise targets
such as reducing the amount
nesses, corporations and governments
should invest their
resources if they are serious
about really creating circularity
at scale in their supply chains.
Despite some improvements
Markets must
become more
localised. "
Federico di Penta
Delterra
of PET used in their products or
improving the specific recycling
rates for PET. Cities, on the other
hand, again understandably
so, are likely to set targets that
consider the full municipal solid
waste stream, looking at plastic,
paper, organics, etc. Misalignment
between the goals of the
multiple stakeholders involved
can create a slightly perverse
market that will prioritise certain
materials, as is the case
now with PET. While convening
national and international coalitions
is often a cumbersome
and lengthy undertaking, it can
provide real change, given the
goals are aligned among a heterogeneous
set of stakeholders
and that they are geared towards
developing solutions that
are truly sustainable.
We also need to prioritise
scalability. Testing scaling models
and helping them gain momentum
is a critical need, along
with understanding how to
scale what works. This is a key
design principle at Delterra and
should also inform where busifrom
a policy perspective, we
are still seeing a lot of waste
and recycled materials being
shipped around the world. For
example, in Indonesia, it is still
more profitable to ship recycled
PET out of the country to
higher-paying markets in Europe
than to sell it locally, which
obviously is a poor solution,
both for the environment and
the local manufacturing economy.
Markets must become
more localised, by developing
collaborative and locally adaptable
solutions for both the supply-and-demand
sides, therefore
creating short and close
supply chains that can reliably
absorb recycled materials at a
fair price and reintroduce them
into the market.
Going forward, what do you
see as the most important
challenge confronting the
plastics industry in terms
of environmental impact? Is
there a viable solution?
The characteristics that drove
the growth in plastic use over
the last few decades are also
one of the greatest challenges
to its future sustainability. Compared
to other materials, virgin
plastic is comparatively cheap
and extremely versatile, and
this comparatively low price encouraged
its growth but is also
hindering its recovery and use
as a recycled material. While
there is much work to be done
on redesigning products that
can be recycled (e.g., packaging)
and phasing out products
that cannot realistically be recycled
(e.g., single-use items),
there are already a lot of recyclable
plastic products out there
that are not being recycled due
to comparatively low value and,
therefore, the lack of a market
for them. New, sustainable
markets, therefore, need to be
stimulated, transcending traditional
tax / subsidy-based
and private sector approaches.
This is a major challenge for the
plastic industry, which does not
generally have the authority, the
tools or the experience to drive
meaningful change at this level.
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