Dow to further invest into developing solutions vs plastic wastes

Dow is planning to further invest and develop new global initiatives and solutions that work to prevent and remediate plastic waste in the environment.

The company, which joins Circulate Capital and the Ocean Conservancy with investments to keep plastic waste out of the environment, said that “Reducing the amount of plastic required to create products and improving the recyclability of plastics – while maintaining the benefits people need from plastics – are important parts of the solution that we support through research and collaboration.”

The initiatives, announced in conjunction with the recent Our Ocean Conference in Bali, Indonesia, include Dow’s commitment to join several other major global brands to become a founding investor in Circulate Capital’s US$100 million effort to incubate and finance companies and infrastructure that prevent waste in oceans. Dow also announced at the Conference that it intends to donate an additional US$1 million to Ocean Conservancy over the next two years to support waste collection and recycling solutions in Southeast Asian countries. This money would be used for projects that build the capacity of local non-governmental organizations and partnerships with city leaders to develop, scale and replicate implementable solutions.

“Dow is leading the way in our industry – by applying circular economy logic, collaborating across the value chain, innovating new products, and through the commitment of our employees and customers – to put an end to plastic waste in the environment,” said Jim Fitterling, CEO of Dow, adding, “We will continue to seek opportunities to work with our industry partners, brand owners, local, national and international governments, NGOs and consumers to ensure that we develop true circular economy solutions for plastics.”

Diego Donoso, Business President of Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics commented on Dow’s collaboration with Circulate Capital: “Circulate Capital’s work is important because it empowers local people in the regions most impacted by lack of waste management infrastructure to develop actionable and scalable solutions within their communities. There are many people with both the ideas and the resolve to tackle this waste challenge and Dow is proud to help provide the capital to transform those ideas into solutions.”

As for Dow’s teaming up with Ocean Conservancy, Mike Witt, Dow’s Corporate Director of Plastics Circular Economy, said: “Partnering with organisations such as Ocean Conservancy are essential to Dow’s commitment to advancing end-of-life solutions for plastic, as we accelerate innovation focused on driving new types of recycling processes, supporting reusability and using fewer resources”. “Reducing the amount of plastic required to create products and improving the recyclability of plastics – while maintaining the benefits people need from plastics – are important parts of the solution that we support through research and collaboration,” Witt added.

These latest announcements add to a growing list of recent commitments and activities Dow is leading in plastics sustainability, including, the company’s recentgovernment partnerships driven by the World Economic Forum, called the Global Plastic Action Partnership, to bring businesses, civil society, national and local governments, community groups and world-class experts together to collaborate on solving plastic pollution. This partnership is initially funded by the governments of Canada and the UK, along with Dow and several global brands, with the objective to have investable localised solutions in place by 2020, which can then be adapted and implemented in other countries. The first project is a collaboration with the government of Indonesia; its recent #PullingOurWeight campaign that has involved clean-ups of beaches and waterways; its initiated Hefty EnergyBag, a recovery initiative that collects hard-to-recycle plastics and converts them into valuable resources; Dow’s RecycleReady technology that enables manufacturers to develop packaging that can qualify for the Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s“How2Recycle” label and answer the demand for more recyclable packaging options; investing in recycling and waste management solutions; as well as collaborating across value chain towards recycling.

(PRA)

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