Why?

Our Objectives

The main justification for the minimum requirements for Verified Plastic Recovery Units (VPU) is to ensure that plastic recovery activities do result in positive environmental and social outcomes, while at the same time ensuring that methodologies and approaches are simple, accessible and inclusive.  This will be achieved by:

1. Agreeing on a framework of minimum requirements for all actors, including service providers on the ground;

2. Bringing more consistency and robustness to the plethora of voluntary standards that are driven by a growing demand for solutions to address plastic pollution;

3. Agreeing on guidelines for environmental claims that are made in relation to these services and projects;

The combination of these measures, and adoption of the VPU guidance, will result in:

• More trust among buyers of local services that remove plastic from the environment, so that more funds are made available to deal with currently mismanaged plastic waste;

• Avoiding reputational damage of other credits market (e.g. carbon markets), which are now spilling over into 'Plastic Credits' market. We therefore wish to create a framework which is simpler, easier to measure, and give this new framework a new name.

Minimum requirements or quicksand

Without basic minimum requirements, there is a risk that different plastic recovery schemes result in contrasting impacts. In some cases, projects may be good from an environmental perspective but neutral or even negative on its social impact. In other cases, projects may have positive social impacts but not deliver waste reduction impacts at the desired level.

Given that a significant proportion of waste recovery worldwide is, and will, be conducted by low income waste pickers, it is essential that these activies are guided by a set of minimum requirements that ensure the delivery of both environmental and social impacts desired. 

Methodologies used for quantification of environmental impacts, to date, have become too burdensome and ineffective. A recent paper about carbon markets, for instance, states that “expectations around certitude create overburdensome compliance demands which, in turn, create unfairness and inefficiency in the Global South. High compliance costs remain the main barriers to entry for suppliers, which now renders unviable up to 80% of potential projects in the tropics. The industry could explore introducing a fundamental principle of parsimony in methodologies, rules, and assessments—where approaches should be no more complicated than they need to be and should focus on the most uncertain components. Key to this is recognizing that accurately measuring carbon stocks (in our case, plastic flows) is only a small part of assessing a project’s impact and quality”

We want to avoid this and must therefore start afresh, without using the same methodologies and thinking that caused the problems of the voluntary carbon markets.  As Albert Einstein said "You cannot solve problems with the same mind that created it".   

This is work in progress, therefore we welcome your suggestions, and your support for or endorsement of our initiative is most welcome !

These  minimum requirements for the recovery of plastic waste serves as a building block or foundation for any type of outcomes-based financing instrument for waste collection and recycling.  Examples of outcomes-based financing instruments for waste recovery are plastic crediting standards, pre-orders, certification standards or EPR fee systems.

This is neither a certification standard, nor a plastic credit standard, but a definition of a universal metrics for plastic waste recovery activities: Verified Plastic Recovery Units (VPU).   The VPU is a unit of measure upon which plastic credits and certification standards can be quantified and independently verified. From this starting point other requirements can be added to create specific standards.

What is troubling the voluntary carbon credits markets and how is this affecting the reputation of efforts to finance plastic waste recovery projects?

While there is the temptation to borrow existing approaches from the carbon markets to be adapted to the plastic waste recovery sector, it is important to recognise the problems associated with carbon markets to avoid its shortcomings. Over the last three years, voluntary carbon markets have been plagued by scams, leaving a perceived risk of such an instrument with the buyers of carbon credits. Some of the issues raised, in short, are:

a) License to Pollute. Carbon credits or offsets are seen by many as a way to continue polluting without having to make any effort to curb the pollution, except to offset it by buying carbon credits. The plastic recovery sector has to address it by avoiding claims that give the perception of a “license to pollute” but instead of a contribution to a just and sustainable environment. Avoiding the term “credit” may help disassociate the VCU from the public perception of a license to pollute.

b) Complex, yet weak verification: Almost all carbon credit methodologies and application procedures are so complex that most projects require expensive consultants to help them complete the applications, validation, registration and verification. As mentioned above, our industry should adopt methodologies, rules, and assessments no more complicated than they need to be and focus on the most important components required to meet VPU requirements.

c) Insufficient social/community impact: Most carbon project standards have a stronger focus on environmental impacts (GHG reduced emissions) and less so on the social impact delivered to poorer communities in the vicinity of the projects. In the waste recovery sector, however,  these social impacts are extremely important, as millions of waste pickers are dependent on waste collection for their livelihood. 

Due to the 3 issues above in the voluntary carbon markets, many potential financiers of plastic waste recovery projects, such as consumer goods companies, but also NGOs, feel that the risks experienced in the voluntary carbon markets will also be faced by the plastic waste recovery markets (using instruments such as plastic credits, plastic certificates, etc). Indeed, the same type of criticism is already raised about plastic credits – see for instance a recent report by Mongabay. In order to reduce these risks, we need a set of minimum requirements and safeguards to avoid the shortcomings of methodologies invented within the carbon markets.

References:

Wells et al. (2023: Confronting deep uncertainty in the forest carbon industry Science 382 (6666). https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adh8117

Mongabay (2023): As companies buy ‘plastic credits,’ are they reducing waste or greenwashing? https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/as-companies-buy-plastic-credits-are-they-reducing-waste-or-greenwashing/