ImpactAlpha
Author: Umesh Madhavan
With Southeast Asia a hotspot for ocean plastic leakage in recent years, markets like Indonesia offer significant opportunities to address the global crisis. Tridi Oasis, a company that recycles waste PET bottles into rPET flakes, is one of the businesses across the region laying the foundations for what they and policymakers hope will become a thriving circular economy. The problem is there isn’t yet enough private capital available to grow the circular economy at scale.
New research by The Circulate Initiative has revealed for the first time that the scale of annual private investment into plastics circularity across emerging markets sits well short of the estimated $27.5 billion needed annually to create basic waste management infrastructure. Governments, global corporations and multilateral cooperation – like the development of the global plastics treaty – play an essential role to fill the financing gap that is standing in the way of creating a sustainable circular economy.