Poor waste management in Sri Lanka is causing upsetting environmental biodiversity problems. Municipal waste is regularly discarded in open garbage dumps, many of which are located near protected areas and wildlife habitats. Waste is turning dumpsites into death traps for Sri Lankan elephants, which means they are inadvertently eating large amount of plastic and dying from it.​​ Plastic waste circulating in the Bay of Bengal end of on Sri Lankan beaches as well as domestic waste that is discarded along rivers and beaches. Waste less Arugam Bay (WLAB) is a project founded by Lanka Upcycles in 2018, that works with local people of Arugam Bay on the east coast of Sri Lanka, cleaning up jungle areas that are home to Sri Lankan elephants, beaches and provides waste management to tourism industry which is a large polluter. Using precious plastic machines, the project collects and crushes plastic to send off to the recycling center. Less plastic ends up in the environment, saving the lives of animals, and everyone has cleaner drinking water as a result of less waste leakage.

We’re a social enterprise committed to giving a “Second Life” to plastic waste. By working in partnership with local collectors and recycling initiatives, we believe that companies can be part of the solution to support circular plastic supply chains and generate new sources of incomes for vulnerable communities. Our goal is to cover all island territories in Thailand and Indonesia, with a goal to collect and recycle 50,000,000 kgs per year from these beaches and island communities. To date, we have already collected and recycled 2,000,000 kgs and our network continues to expand.

Mundorep is a Costa Rican company specialized in recycling and transforming plastic raw materials with high added value. By recycling 187 million plastic bags annually, this company has a positive impact on both the environment and society. Some impact highlights are:  Annual processing of 187 million plastic bags.  Receives plastic from over 100 collection centers in Costa Rica.  Provides employment to more than 1,000 collecting workers.  Offers an installed production capacity of 5,000 tons of recycled plastic resins.

India generates 15 million tons of plastic waste every year but only ¼ is recycled. The Safai Saathis, the waste pickers who collect plastic waste for a living, are mostly women. They play an important role in keeping the environment clean, and projects such as Esperanza ensure their social protection and create opportunities for safe, sustainable, and dignified working conditions. ​​ Founded in 2018, Esperanza is a social enterprise that works with the Safai Saathis to collect waste in the environment and recycle it in their facilities, to later sell the plastic as a raw material. One of the missions of Esperanza is to provide dignified jobs for women, and for this reason, women represent over 60% of their employees.​

Recity envisions to keep plastics in the economy and out of the environment. Today, we maximize the circularity of plastics by delivering inclusive, traceable and sustainable cities with cross-value chain collaborations in the ecosystem. Our key solutions are: Delivering high quality recyclates to enable a circular economy – Circular Packaging, Deploying traceable and digital innovations – Waste Intelligence Streamlining plastic waste management in cities – Circular Cities

The waste management sector in Ivory Coast still needs a lot of help to improve its current poor practices and ineffectiveness. ​​ Recyplast is a private pre-collection company specialized in the recycling of plastic waste, from the collection to the production of secondary raw materials. Its mission is to preserve the environment and create jobs for people in the community.

Thalassains is committed to helping create a more sustainable future in the world. We will achieve that by using the power of business & collaborations to pave the path to that sustainable future. The founder was inspired to start this business after observing an overwhelming increase in plastic stuck in the world-class coral reefs of The Red Sea in 2020. After observing the negative impact of plastics on our corals, he realized that something has to be done to preserve the Red Sea. He hired a few friends and created a purpose-driven organization concerned with guarding the sea. Now, Thalassains manages one of the largest & most consistent beach cleanup operations in Egypt & recruits 100s of volunteers & staff. Our conservation efforts are focused on four key areas. 1. Education: We prioritize educating the local communities around the Red Sea through regular workshops, school sessions and art projects. 2. Innovation: We use a portion of the waste we collect from the Red Sea and upcycle it into stylish products sold to companies and individuals worldwide. 3. Advocate: Through our network, we are pressuring local governments to put policies in place that will reduce the negative impact of plastic on the environment. 4. Recovery: By doing regular beach cleanups, we are helping marine life flourish and inspiring behavioural change at the local level. Join the #CLEANREDSEAMVMT and help us preserve one of the last standing coral reefs in the world.

A social enterprise in Kenya dedicated to cleaning the ocean, rivers and landfills, and empowering people in the process. Rintz Industries wants to save underwater life and restore the marine ecosystem by 2030. ​​ The project aims to do this by reducing waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling, reuse and awareness programs. Between 2016 and 2021 Rintz has prevented an astonishing 22,343 tons from leaking into the ocean. People in the community can get involved with beach and ocean clean ups. They also work closely with Vintz Plastiks Ltd., who are also partnered with Plastiks.

Plásticos Güell is a company committed to a sustainable world and a vision of the future based on innovation, efficiency, respect and diversity. In our case we do not recycle plastic that comes directly from the environment because we do not have the machinery to be able to clean it. However, we are collaborating with the social initiative of solidarity caps. We buy bottle caps (water bottles, detergent bottles, etc.) from associations that collect them from households for charitable purposes. More info at: https://www.ccma.cat/tv3/alacarta/programa/Taps-solidaris/video/4120810/

Meet Vintz Plastics, an inspiring waste management company in Nairobi, Kenya. It was set up from a passion for sustainable living and waste elimination, with the desire to remove waste from dump sites, rivers, the land and the sea. Vintz provides a closed loop for plastic waste management, recovering plastic and recycling it into new materials. The project employs 200 people, most of them being women that would otherwise have no job prospects. Vitia Halai, the founder of Vintz Plastics says that "empowering women is at the heart of the business and I don't want them ending up somewhere else when they don't have jobs".

In Tanzania, most plastic becomes toxic smoke, or it ends up mixed with dust and land. But Njombe Beyond knows that it is possible to give plastic a new opportunity to meet the needs of the community. They are an environmental project that turns plastic waste into valuable objects to be used by the local communities of Njombe. ​​ The project uses simple, local Precious Plastic machines to recycle plastic waste into items of value. These machines can be accessed in an open lab by local entrepreneurs, who can experiment and learn how to recycle themselves, so they can start their own business. ​ ​

Meet Green Mining, a startup born in the heart of the Brazil, in the city of São Paulo, the most populous city in Latin America. Brazil's recycling rate is lower than 3% and 90% of what is recovered is carried out by an informal workforce without guaranteed labor rights, and in unpleasant working conditions such as landfills.​​ The project makes use of an Intelligent Reverse Logistics technology to efficiently retrieve post-consumption plastic and bring it back to the production cycle.

Plastic Corporation is a company created in response to the contamination problem that exists along the Chira Valley, Perú. Around 410 TN of plastic waste from banana bags are being burned, buried, or left outdoors. We have been able to raise awareness among producers and recyclers in our surrounding areas to collect this material and other plastic waste (HDPE, LDPE, PP, PS), including some that are not recycled (No. 7) and thus become our suppliers, which generates a possibility of economic improvement for the community. We transform this plastic waste together with vegetable waste (rice husks) into an innovative product called "plastic wood", thus giving a second life to single-use plastics and turning them into resistant, durable, impermeable, non-flammable, non-toxic structural units that avoid the felling of trees.

Sucesores de Leonardo Garcia is a company committed to the environment for 75 years, making with its recovery and classification that 70% of the waste that enters our plant does not end up in landfills and is recycled. Our waste comes from the industrial sector and illegal dumping clean-ups. When the mixed waste arrives, our company classifies and cleans it. It's then ready to be recycled by companies that produce garbage bags, softener bottles, etc. We have carried out cork collection campaigns to ensure that children with disabilities have the necessary means to improve their day to day life. We actively collaborate with the Diabetes 0 Foundation https://www.zerodiabetes.com/ The foundation "La Foundation Rotaria" https://www.rotary.org/es/about-rotary/rotary-foundation

Green Worms seeks to alleviate the plastic pollution crises and poverty by embracing a circular economy model which will create dignified jobs by diverting waste from landfills and oceans. The project was founded in the village of Kerala and already operates in 20 more towns and coastal villages of India.​ Since 2014, when it was founded, the project has already recovered 39,400 tons of waste and has created 300+ jobs for women, empowering them with technical and professional skills. Green Worms is building a female workforce in waste management, changing the cultural approach to tackle the waste crisis and to mitigate oceanic plastic pollution.

The annual plastic consumption in Chile is around 1 million tons, of which only 7% is recycled. Collection and sorting facilities are limited, despite the number of small manual sorting systems, such as the system developed by Reciclador Chile. The lack of automatic and modern infrastructure explains how much the society relies on these smaller projects to keep their communities clean and to recycle in higher rates.​​ Reciclador Chile is a company located in the province of Valparaiso, Chile, committed to caring for the environment and communities by implementing a system to manage solid waste and its recovery in an efficient and timely manner.

Plastic has become a ubiquitous material in our oceans. It is part of people’s everyday life and it is a usual presence on its beaches and at sea. Every year, between 8 and 12 million tons of plastic are dumped into our seas and oceans. Only in the Mediterranean Sea (THE MOST POLLUTED SEA IN THE WORLD), 0.57 million tonnes of plastic enters its waters. This is equivalent to dumping 33,800 plastic bottles into the sea every minute. Without action, this number will keep growing as plastic waste generation in the region is expected to quadruple by 2050. If this happens, we will have more plastic than fish by that year and we are not going to allow it.

As a leader in urban services and waste treatment, Urbaser’s mission is to contribute to the sustainable development of cities and territories through efficient services and innovative technology. Our urban services division includes waste services, street and beach cleaning, and management of landscaped areas. These are very sensitive services, which have a direct impact on the quality of life of millions of citizens around the world, whether in Madrid, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile, London, or Paris.