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sustainability
continued from page 17
Oceans. " This guarantees total
transparency, absence of conflict
of interest, and certainty of
compliance. "
Plastic credits are tradable
instruments and, once issued,
prices are set and then change
through demand and supply
forces. A project that provides
greater direct environmental
benefits should be valued higher
than a credit coming from a
lower impact source. Some of
these projects have allowed local
women to become leaders
in their community and own
their own business, all while
providing education on waste
management. These operations
should not exploit labor
but, rather, help those affected
by plastic waste, which is often
generated from developed
countries yet finds its way to
more impoverished communities,
who likely did not create
the material in the first place.
There are different types of
projects that can generate plastic
credits. Some examples are:
* Coastal and waterway debris
removal by hand,
* Open ocean collection by
boat,
* Debris traps set in rivers,
* Microplastic filtration collection,
and
* Recycling materials collected
from the natural environment,
post-consumer & industrial
waste, urban dumping, and
unmanaged landfills.
There are a lot of factors
that determine the pricing of
plastic credits. For instance,
higher costs in the recovery
of plastic from the ocean
compared to the picking of
plastic waste from landfills
will be reflected in the pricing
of those credits. To some
buyers, credits from a specific
geography, polymer, or source
that aligns with a company's
operations are worth a premium.
Meanwhile, projects that
support more social progress
in health, equality, employment,
and environmental
justice should have these
attributes valued in the price
of the credit. Likewise, projects
that pay workers a higher
standard wage or provide
healthcare benefits should
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May/June 2021
reflect that added value.
What are the Benefits?
When considering plastic
credits as an option, a business
must first understand what is to
be gained by supporting plastic
waste projects and the co-benefits
they bring to the local
communities and environment.
How a company selects a
plastic credit project to support
depends on its plastic footprint
profile and sustainability needs.
For instance, a plastic resin
producer, a computer manufacturer,
and a clothing retailer all
have different uses for plastic in
their business; each will have
a different relationship with
plastic and will require different
ways to implement credits.
Depending on organizational
goals and desired outcomes,
the benefit options may vary
but can include the following:
* Offsetting a product line, a
specific amount, or the geography
of a plastic footprint
* Offsetting a voluntary commitment
or Extended Producer
Responsibility obligation for
plastic recovery or recycling
* Providing content for ESG/
CSR/sustainability stakeholder
communications
* Lowering the cost of recycling
for a vendor
* Lowering the cost of recovering
plastics for a materials
The World's First
Plastic Credit
ClimeCo, a leader in the
management and development
of environmental commodities,
has partnered with TONTOTON,
a plastic project developer in
Vietnam that removes no-value
plastic from the environment to
generate the world's first plastic
credits through an independent
supplier
* Certifying materials as being
Ocean or Ocean-bound plastic
* Supporting projects that
are solving UN SDG goalaligned
social and environmental
challenges.
In many cases, environmental
justice is central to the
plastic waste crisis. The most
acute plastic waste problems
occur in the developing parts of
the world in communities least
equipped to deal with it. Therefore,
successful plastic projects
also provide many social and
environmental co-benefits,
such as providing above-average
paying jobs for collection
workers, providing new
employment opportunities for
women, promoting education,
improving water quality and
community health, protecting
food supplies, and enhancing
biodiversity.
standard and 3rd party verification
auditing process. These
credits have achieved the
Ocean Bound Plastic Neutrality
Certification, an independent
protocol of French-based NGO
Zero Plastic Oceans, and have
been 3rd-party verified and audited
by leading global certification
specialist Control Union
Certifications.
" The Ocean Bound Plastic
Neutrality Certification is focused
on ocean-bound plastic
that is non-commercially
recyclable, " says Vincent Decap,
Co-founder Zero Plastic
Oceans, " which means abandoned
plastic waste that nobody
would ever collect since
they have no market value. "
The TONTOTON project had
to adhere to the protocol requirement
set by Zero Plastic
Oceans and audited by Control
Union Certifications, as will
other projects seeking to obtain
the Ocean Bound Plastic Certification.
The plastic handling
operations utilize a control and
tracking system with RFID tags,
GPS, and image recording on
collected plastic during warehousing
and transportation to
monitor and record movement
and processing.
TONTOTON projects recover
post-consumer, non-recyclable,
ocean-bound plastic waste
and co-processes it into AFRM
(Alternative Fuels & Raw Mate
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