More investment into tackling plastic pollution needed

ABOUT 22 million tonnes of plastic waste leaked into the environment in 2019, and this could double by 2060. With total investments into plastics circularity since 2018 at only $190 billion, the current investment trajectory is too slow to meet targets to reduce plastic leakage into the environment by 90 percent by 2040. An average of $32 billion a year of private investment went to plastics circularity between 2018 and 2023, far below the $1 trillion needed.

The latest figures are revealed in the third edition of the Plastics Circularity Investment Tracker, released by The Circulate Initiative (CI), a nonprofit organization dedicated to solving the ocean plastic pollution challenge in emerging markets. The latest report, which received support from the International Finance Corp., analyzed more than 5,500 transactions across 3,000 companies in 100 countries over a six-year period.