From diapers to bricks, Asia is at the centre of the world’s US$100 billion plastic waste challenge

As Asia-Pacific president of Dow Chemical, one of the world’s biggest producers of plastics and chemicals, Jon Penrice has 100 billion reasons to recycle.

“About 8 million tons of plastics are going into the ocean annually,” he said in an interview. “If you look at plastic packaging, around 95 per cent is not being recycled each year, which is US$100 billion worth of plastic, and that’s valuable for entrepreneurs.”

At the centre of the effort is Asia, which consumes almost half of the world’s plastic packaging, according to BloombergNEF, and imports even more waste from the US and Europe.

Solutions – such as Indian vending machines that turn plastic bottles into polyester, and researchers in Singapore who are working out ways to clean up oil spills using the waste – will be needed to meet demand for recycled plastics that Is forecast to rise faster than supply.

The biggest challenge to the transition is to make recycled plastics at a price and quality that are competitive. Virgin plastic is derived from crude oil and is closely linked to the global oil price. Because the cost of recycled plastic is more stable, it becomes relatively more expensive when crude prices fall.

The complexity of sorting different types of plastic is another hurdle, according to Penrice, as well as dealing with waste at source rather than producing a lot of carbon emissions by sending it halfway around the world.