The circular economy is a global effort, not just a talking point in Europe or North America.
In the latest Sustainable Plastics Live, Karen Laird, editor for Sustainable Plastics, and Beatriz Santos, associate editor for SP, talk about efforts to reclaim plastics in developing economies as well as countries with established waste collection systems.
Laird recently returned from Plastics Recycling Show India in Mumbai while Santos was at Plastics Recycling Show Asia in Singapore in November.
India is approaching recycling in ways far different from those seen in Europe, Laird said, but with a system that works for its economy. The country's PET bottle recycling rate tops some European countries.
Asia is a far more complex market because it covers a wider range of countries and governments — everything from South Korea with a recycling rate of about 60 percent to Indonesia, a region struggling to establish a waste collection system — but as a whole the region is investing in new circular infrastructure.
During the livestream, they also discussed regulations that could affect recycling rates and hurdles to new investments in Europe.