Barely Credible

Under the OECD’s business-as-usual scenario, global plastic waste is forecast to rise to 1,014 Mt by 2060, a near tripling compared to 2019 levels. The AEPW’s last Progress Report (2021) demonstrates that the AEPW had only diverted and recycled about 0.004 Mt since its creation in 2019, signaling that a dramatic ramp-up in recycling and recovery is needed. The USD 1.5 billion pledged by the AEPW members over a five-year period represents only a fraction of their members’ financial capacity and it is trivial in comparison to the USD 400 billion the oil & gas and chemical industry plans to spend on new plastic manufacturing capacity in the coming years.