Ending Ocean Plastic Pollution: USAID’s Save our Seas Initiative One Year In

[00:29] Welcome and happy World Oceans Day. I’m Laura Parker. I’ve been covering ocean plastic for almost a decade and one of the most surprising things about this issue is how quickly it rose to the top of the public agenda, competing at times with climate change as the top environmental issue now. How can that be, you might ask? Climate change. This is basically garbage we’re talking about.

[01:00] For one, plastic is made of oil. So, it’s part of the climate story and it’s a lot easier to understand and visualize. We see plastic waste every day. The other boost that drives the industry crazy, but it keeps it in the news is the animal story and how birds, animals, and marine wildlife are suffering from becoming entangled or eating plastic. If anyone doubts the power of those stories, I invite you to check in with the Costa Rican turtle with the straw in its nose.

[01:33] The video of the removal of that straw has been watched more than 100 million times on YouTube. Again, just as the public quickly tuned in to the scope of the problem, the response to it has also accelerated. Issues I thought would remain on the fringe are now part of the mainstream conversation. That includes things like production. Production doubles every dozen years or so. Should we be making less or packaging, which is 40 percent of all plastic made today? Should we redesign it?

[02:10] How do we wrap up what we buy? Earlier this month, negotiators in Paris wrapped up their second round of talks about a plastic treaty. They hope to reach an agreement by the end of next year. That’s also an incredibly fast track. We are here today to talk about plastic in the oceans and what we can do about it. I’m sure you’ve all heard about the efforts to clean up oceans and remove plastic from it. Many of these are experimental, but at the end of the day, that approach doesn’t really work.

[02:49] Plastic breaks down by wave action and sunlight into smaller and smaller pieces. I’m sure you’ve heard about microplastics, which are about the size of a grain of rice, but they get smaller than that and there’s no taking those out of the ocean. Then you might ask if they’re so small, the seals aren’t getting strangled by it, so how harmful is it?

[03:26] We don’t really know the answer to all of that. Scientists are still examining this question, but I went snorkeling with some NOAA scientists to explore part of that and one and their question was: are larval fish eating nanoplastics as their first meal? If they are, what does that mean for fish populations? And that’s only one example. The most effective way to protect the oceans remains keeping plastic on land and preventing it from flowing into the sea. There is no silver bullet for this, but we can borrow the title of this year’s Oscar-winning movie: “Everything, everywhere, all at once.” We’re here today to learn about some of those new programs, including one in Vietnam.

[04:05] Vietnam is a country with 2,100 miles of coastline, a growing population approaching 100 million, and a rising middle class with a greater ability to afford to buy consumer goods and all the packaging that they come wrapped in. We’ll also talk about women workers in the Philippines who collect plastic trash and how training programs and business leadership is improving, not only their ability to collect waste, but also their incomes and their health.

[04:36] And we’ll check in with Peru to learn how innovation is transforming recycling there. So, let’s get started first with Gillian Caldwell, USAID’s Climate Officer and Deputy Assistant Administrator, who will catch us up on what the United States is doing.

Thanks. Thanks so much, Laura, and thank you for partnering with us on this event and for your remarks laying out the scope of the ocean plastic pollution problem.

[05:09] As you said, this is a big challenge, but there are some reasons for hope. For example, combating ocean plastic pollution globally has broad bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress. The “Save Our Seas 2.0 Act” of 2020, which is the most ambitious U.S. government legislation to date to tackle ocean plastics, passed with overwhelming support from Republicans and Democrats. I want to acknowledge and thank Senators Bob Menendez, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Dan Sullivan for their tremendous leadership on this legislation.

[05:44] This strong Congressional support really allows U.S. government agencies, like USAID, to be more ambitious in our interventions. Last June, we launched something big—the “Save Our Seas” initiative, which is USAID’s global flagship initiative to combat ocean plastic pollution. The Save Our Seas initiative is focused on where we can have the greatest impact, working with rapidly expanding cities and coastal areas in key countries to stop the flow of plastic waste into the ocean.

[06:15] As much as 90 percent of waste is openly dumped or burned in low-income countries because of the lack of waste management services. Once plastic gets into the ocean and, in turn, into our ecosystems and our bodies by the food we eat, it’s extremely difficult and expensive to remove it. But we can help turn off the tap by partnering with key governments to strengthen solid waste management systems, improve recycling industries, support packaging innovations and green jobs, and promote policy reforms and behavior changes to reduce plastic waste and production.

[06:49] In its first year, USAID committed 62.5 million to the Save Our Seas initiative. We are launching programs in key countries and regions that represent 40 percent of total global mismanaged plastic waste. We’re also partnering with the private sector, which you’ll hear more about in a bit when Laura talks with Circulate Capital CEO, Rob Kaplan.

[07:18] So, what have we accomplished in the first year of our Save Our Seas initiative? We just released an annual report that I encourage you to check out. I think we’ll put a link in the chat. The headline is that USAID’s investments have prevented the equivalent of 6.5 billion plastic bottles from leaking into the environment. That’s 60,000 metric tons of plastic waste that we’ve worked to manage safely. We’re advancing a range of solutions to achieve those results because, as Laura said, there is no single solution to this problem.

[07:53] Since 2016, USAID has supported more than 60 grants in dozens of cities across Asia, the Pacific islands, Latin America, and the Caribbean. This has allowed us to stress test a wide variety of approaches to combating ocean plastics in different countries and contexts, yielding tremendous learning on what works and what doesn’t. We’re applying those lessons under the Save Our Seas initiative and targeting our resources and energy on the most effective solutions.

[08:21] We’re moving from pilot activities to larger scale national programs in key countries, like Vietnam, which you’ll hear about more later. We’re providing technical expertise on waste management to partner countries. In the Dominican Republic, for example, we’re providing technical assistance to transition from open dumps to sanitary landfills where recyclable materials can be separated and cleaned, and non-recyclable waste disposed of safely. In Sri Lanka, we’re supporting key policy reforms helping the government design and implement an extended producer responsibility system.

[08:59] That will place more of the responsibility for the cost of safe collection and disposal of recycling or plastic waste with the producer, who is typically the financial beneficiary, instead of the consumer or the local government. We’re also partnering with the private sector to support innovations and expand market solutions. In Indonesia, our partnership with impact investors, Circulate Capital, is helping recycling businesses grow and expand their capacity to manage more plastic.

[09:32] And we’re supporting informal waste collectors, particularly women, who are often really the first line of defense in stopping plastic from getting into the environment. Importantly, we are supporting social and behavior campaigns to reduce demand for single-use plastics because, first and foremost, we must reduce plastic waste even as we advance our work to reuse and recycle all we can.

[09:56] I’m so pleased we have an excellent panel of experts to discuss these solutions in more detail. We’ve definitely made some progress, but we have a long way to go to solve this urgent and growing problem. Thank you so much and happy World Oceans Day. Now, we have two brief messages from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, who were instrumental in the passing of the Save Our Seas Act. So let’s hear from them now.

[10:28] Hello everyone. I’m Senator Whitehouse, and I would like to thank the entire team at USAID for bringing us together to mark World Oceans Day and for all your work to rid our oceans of plastic waste. I still remember when we first got this started, particularly the enthusiasm for our Save Our Seas effort. Each year, 8,000,000 metric tons of plastic gets dumped into the ocean. That’s a garbage truck full of plastic every minute.

[11:06] And plastic is made from fossil fuels. So, if we want to save our oceans and lead the planet to safety in the race against climate change, we must act now to lessen the plastic debris that is choking the oceans. Working with Senators Sullivan and Menendez, we went on and passed Save Our Seas 2.0,which built on the original Save Our Seas law to raise America’s ambitions in tackling this global crisis. You all help there too.

[11:37] Save Our Seas 2.0 strengthens the U.S. domestic marine debris response capability. With the Marine Debris Foundation, a genius prize for innovation and new research, it improved global engagement to combat marine debris, including formalizing American policy on international cooperation, strengthening outreach to other countries, and exploring a new international agreement on plastics. It also helped domestic infrastructure prevent marine debris through new grants and studies of waste management and mitigation.

[12:11] Those legislative successes and that good work produced funding through the appropriations process for international negotiations and partnerships abroad. USAID launched the Save Our Seas Initiative to support the implementation of Save Our Seas 2.0. Through this program, USAID has supported 14 country and regional programs in areas that represent 40 percent of total global mismanaged plastic waste. USAID has prevented over 51,000 metric tons of plastic and other materials from leaking into the environment—equivalent to over 5.5 billion plastic bottles.

[12:51] Today, USAID is releasing its first annual report to showcase all this work. I thank the USAID team for their steadfast commitment to protecting our oceans for generations to come. Of course, we’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of this issue. So, I look forward to our continued partnership onward to more successes.

Greetings, This is U.S. Senator, Dan Sullivan, and I want to thank USAID for the invitation to speak at the 1st anniversary of the Save Our Seas Initiative 2.0 launch.

[13:25] And thank you, Administrator Power and your staff for your work on addressing marine pollution. You know, it was an honor to participate in the initiative’s launch last summer by USAID. It was a great event, great discussion, and I’m really glad to see progress since then. As you all I’m sure know or hopefully know, this issue about ocean cleanup and ocean debris and saving our seas literally is one of the most bipartisan issues that I have been involved in.

[14:06] Part of my partner in crime on the Democratic side of the aisle is my good friend, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. We’ve done a lot of work on the first Save Our Seas legislation and then the Save Our Se 2.0 legislation. The Congressional Research Service called that the most comprehensive ocean cleanup legislation ever passed by Congress. The good news also is it’s in the executive branch. The Trump administration was a strong supporter of these initiatives, and now the Biden administration is a strong supporter of these congressional initiatives.

[14:44] So, this is truly a bipartisan issue, to clean up our oceans, and not only the oceans around the United States, but the oceans all over the world. That’s what this legislation tries to do. That’s what you may have seen the G7 and the UN Environmental Program recently do with their focus on ocean debris. So, we’ve made a lot of progress in this important area. Another important component of this is not just the government, but we’ve also had the private sector very engaged, particularly initiatives like the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, which is one of the biggest American companies and international companies to focus again on this issue.

[15:23] I want to thank USAID, in particular, because their initiative, your initiative, brings so many of these efforts together, assisting countries with tailored support and expertise to ensure that governments overseas have the tools that they need to make progress on ocean cleanup and keeping garbage and debris out of their waterways, which ends up in our oceans.

[16:03] The public private partnerships that USAID has been a part of and help foster, have also been critical to these successes. All of this work just proves a point. When you have an environmental issue and all the key stakeholders working on it, on a solvable issue, then you can make enormous progress, bipartisan progress, with government, industry, international organizations. So, again to USAID, great job on keeping up the momentum on this important initiative.

[16:38] I think that moving forward here, I think that one of the things that we need to continue to do is have this international component led by USAID in the State Department as a key part of our efforts on ocean cleanup. I’ll just give you an example. Of course, the United States isn’t perfect, but the vast majority, I think all of you know, of the ocean debris, ocean plastics that end up in the ocean come from just a small number of countries in Asia and Africa.

[17:17] Unfortunately, from my state, a lot of that debris ends up on the shores of Alaska. We have more coastline than the rest of the lower 48 combined, so we see the impacts of foreign ocean debris issues ending up in the United States. So, that component of continuing the work overseas with countries that are partners, allies, or other countries, I think is going to be critical. So, thank you again, USAID, for that.

[17:49] On the Congressional side, we are going to continue to pursue bipartisan legislation. Senator Whitehouse and I and others, we are making sure that the follow-up from the implementation of Save Our Seas 2.0 continues. Let me give you an important component of that. You know that legislation created the Congressionally chartered Marine Debris Foundation. We are getting that set up.

[18:17] We have a great Board I met with recently. They will be kind of a conduit point, a convening point of both public and private sector efforts to move forward on ocean debris. The foundation has enormous potential. It’s just getting off the ground and we want to make sure that that’s a key component of all of our work going forward. So, we’re looking forward to the good work that they’re doing. Like I said, they have a strong Board and I think that has enormous potential.

[18:48] So again, I want to congratulate all of you at USAID for this first year anniversary for the great initiative that you are undertaking with regard to one of the most critical environmental issues. I think we can all work together in a bipartisan way and make really strong impactful results cleaning up ocean debris and ocean plastics. You guys are doing a great job. Keep it up. Thank you, Senators, for that message.

[19:30] The next segment of our event will spotlight some of USAID and its partners’ approach to addressing ocean plastic pollution and circular economies, highlighting some of the achievements over the past years and how USAID will continue to scale up work and expand programs and partnerships with greater impact. First up is a conversation with Rob Kaplan, founder and CEO of Circulate Capital, a firm that invests in companies that divert plastic waste from landfills and toward a circular future. Good morning, Rob, and welcome to World Ocean Day. We’d like to begin by having you explain to us how Circulate Capital got involved in this issue and what you’re doing in your portfolio and then discuss a little bit with us the blended financing that you have done with USAID.

[20:16] Thank you, Laura. It’s great to be here. I wish I could be with you in person, but calling in from Singapore. Anyway, wishing you all the best of the day today. I’m the founder and CEO of Circulate Capital. We’re an investment fund dedicated to financing solutions to plastic pollution, particularly in South and Southeast Asia and now expanding across emerging markets.

[20:47] But to your question, you know, I founded the company back in 2018 because we wanted to build that first investment fund to really drive a solution as everyone was starting to understand the scope of the problem with ocean plastic. And we knew that this region—in particular, South and Southeast Asia, was pretty much Ground Zero for the plastic pollution crisis. Within that, a significant amount of capital is really going to be needed to move the needle.

[21:12] So, I started by engaging with large corporations that wanted to be part of the solution: Unilever, Danone, Dow, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and several others. When I approached them to back this fund, they were all concerned about the risk, and it was understandable. I was concerned about it too. No one had ever really done a fund like this before, particularly in this part of the world. So, that’s where the blended finance partnership with USAID and DFC came in.

[21:41] By providing a credit guarantee, we were able to mitigate a lot of those risks that were giving our investors concerns. Instead, we gave them the confidence that they needed to proceed to anchor the Circulate Capital Ocean Fund, which now includes more than $175 million from many of those corporations and has expanded to include other public and private investors. We’re investing in recycling companies and recycling supply chains across South and Southeast Asia.

[22:09] Can you talk a little bit on how those concerns have been eased and what the early results look like, and has that encouraged even more investments?

Yeah, well, so the key part of this partnership with USAID is bringing the idea of blended finance to life. So, when we make a loan to a company in Indonesia and we can talk about an example, we’re taking on all that risk and making a loan of $5 million. .We have to assess, do we think we’ll get that $5 million back, plus interest? With the credit guarantee, it covers our losses up to a certain extent.

[22:46] So, if that company went bankrupt, for example, and we gave them a loan of $5 million, USAID, in this insurance product, would pay our investors back $2.5 million. So, we’re sharing that risk and that allows us, as a fund, to take on more interesting opportunities and investments that we might have deemed too risky, but by providing that credit guarantee, we were able to do investments that we might not have done otherwise. So, that’s really allowed us to invest, and now we’ve invested over $60 million in almost 15 companies across South and Southeast Asia, and some technologies globally.

[23:24] We’re very excited that they’re now preventing more than 100,000 tons of plastic pollution every year. Of that portfolio, what gives us a sense of what those companies do? Are they all recycling companies, or is there a mix of different kinds?

Yeah, we consider ourselves a full value chain investment program. We’re looking at innovative materials and biopolymers. We’re looking at advanced recycling technologies and digital platforms, reuse-and-refill models.

[23:52] Primarily, our investments are going towards after waste is generated, to companies in India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam that collect, sort, and process plastic waste, diverting it from the environment and putting it into the supply chains of our corporate partners, like Unilever and Danone and Coca Cola. So, let’s talk about one example in a little bit of depth.

[24:18] Yeah, we’ve done three investments in Indonesian companies that have all been covered by this credit guarantee and credit enhancement with USAID. Tridi Oasis, Reciki, and Prevented Ocean Plastic in Southeast Asia. Maybe I’ll just talk a little bit about Tridi Oasis. So, Tridi Oasis started in 2016 by two female entrepreneurs and they wanted to build a large-scale bottle recycling plant. They started at a very small scale, it took them about three years from 2016 to 2019 to get to 1,000 tons a month.

[24:54] They wanted to get to 30,000 tons a year. So, to double that, they basically built a supply chain of ways to collect that material and then flake it, grind it up, and flake it and wash it and sell it to domestic customers. They’re hoping to access higher priced European export markets as well. So, we did our first loan to Tridi Oasis in early 2020 to help them expand and upgrade their production capacity and also to move to a new, more professional facility.

[25:24] What we collectively recognize with the entrepreneurs is that they needed a more professional operating partner to help them really get to the quality level to be able to build a bottle-to-bottle plant. So, they were really limited in their technical and operating capabilities. So, Alba Recycling, which is a recycling company that was operating a plant in Hong Kong, wanted to move to Indonesia, but they needed a local partner to do it. They decided to buy out our loan and acquire Tridi Oasis last year.

[25:53] So, we fully exited the company and then over the last year, they’ve now built a very exciting plan to actually launch that 30,000-ton plant. So, we’re very excited to see what they can do together by bringing a local entrepreneur with that supply chain knowledge and an international player with operational excellence. So that’s been a big lesson that we’ve taken away about how we connect local entrepreneurs and SMEs that know the supply chain with global operators that can bring best in class facilities to life.

[26:25] What are the other projects that you were trying to line up in light of this success?

So right now, we are primarily focused on scaling up our portfolio in South and Southeast Asia. We have a number of companies that are kind of at that stage in India as well that are ready to not just build their first plant or their second plant, but want to do five plants. So, that’s a big, big opportunity for us. We’re also very excited to be expanding to Latin America and the Caribbean.

[26:53] As you may know, Latin America is home to one of the highest waste-per-capita generation rates in all emerging economies and that’s only going to increase. So just last week, we actually announced with IDB Labs, Danone, Dow, Mondelez, Unilever, and several others a $65 million strategy to help scale the recycling industry across Latin America and the Caribbean. So, we’re very excited to get to work there too.

[27:17] When will that happen? How many different operations will you be able to finance? And when will that get underway?

So, we announced it last week. We’re underway and we’re in due diligence on our first three or four investments in Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. We’re hoping to do about 15 investments over the next few years.

And can you, for our viewers, give us some sense of, both in Indonesia and maybe a better example than South American cause you’ve got your feet wet there, translate into what this means for the larger scope of the problem. These are small operations that are doing small things; where does that fit into your overall plans?

[27:41] Indonesia may be a better example than South America because you’ve got your feet wet there. Can you translate this into what it means for the larger scope of the problem? I mean these are small operations that are doing small things. Where does that fit into your overall plans?

Well, I think we recognize that. There’s sort of a top-down and bottom-up approach to really solve this problem. And a lot of the work that we’re doing is, I think, leading the way to show what’s possible to build out these supply chains in these high growth markets.

[28:24] But there’s a lot more work that needs to be done to drive the scale. Like I said, it’s going to take much more than the $100 million that we pulled together. It’s going to take many billions of dollars. And we need supportive policies to be enacted and rolled out across these markets as well so that there’s proper enforcement, and incentives to make these companies work. So, you know our financing is only one part of the solution here.

[28:46] And what kind of reaction are you getting from the big players in industry who you mentioned earlier, Unilever, Coke, and so on as they have watched this particular operation get up and running and then become successful.

Has that provided incentive for them, for the big players, to step in in a bigger way?

Yeah, we’re definitely seeing that, and you know, many of the companies that we invested in are now just getting to the point where they can service and sell material to a multinational corporation.

[29:19] It takes time to build these new plants and get the quality control and quality assurance in place and to get qualified to become a supplier. So now that those companies are online and the offtake is available, the conversations and commitments from many of those multinational partners are getting much more serious. They’ve entered into contracts, long-term contracts, I’d say longer than we’ve ever seen before with many of our portfolio companies and others, and we’ve also now seen many of these partners double down with us in Latin America.

[29:46] So, that’s also a big indicator that they’re continuing to try and find ways to deploy capital into the solutions.

Is there anything else that we haven’t covered that you would like to add? I know I think it’s been great to reconnect with you and I’m hopeful that this conference and this important day goes well. Thank you for coming and being a part of the program. Now, we’re going to turn to a terrific panel of speakers who will share their experiences and their efforts in reducing plastic waste.

[30:22] For our first speaker, we’re going to hear from Zhong Wen, the development advisor for USAID in Vietnam who will tell us about how countries, like Vietnam, with a growing population, are addressing the issue of ocean plastic pollution. Can you please talk about the major challenges that Vietnam faces?

[31:03] Thank you, Laura. As you know, Vietnam is a large coastal country. We have a growing population near 100 million, as you just said, with the coastline up to 100 miles and this makes Vietnam a key player in the fight against ocean plastic pollution. Vietnam is also urbanizing very rapidly. The urban population is expected to surpass those in the rural area by 2050. The cities are growing fast and the incomes are rising and that means the demand for consumer and the single-use plastic has been growing pretty fast, particularly in recent years, sometimes even faster than the waste collection capacity.

[31:38] Like many other countries, Vietnam faces significant challenges in the collection, transport, treatment, and disposal of absolute waste, particularly plastic waste collection and transportation up domestic west, especially in urban areas, is commonly accomplished through loosely coordinated cooperation by private companies and the informal waste collective community.

[32:17] The rapid price of plastic import production and the use in Vietnam has led to the countrywide crisis of plastic pollution with negative consequences to the country, economic development, tourism, country heritage, and human and environmental health. However, the good news is that the Vietnam government has been proactively taking steps to address this plastic pollution. The Vietnam government issued the National Action Plan on Marine Plastic Debris Management in 2019, which aimed to reduce plastic litter in oceans by 50 percent by 2025 and by 70–75 percent by 2030.

[33:05] Vietnam also has its law on environment and protection, revised in 2020, with the specific requirement and the guidance on the extended producer responsibility, the EPI, which extended the responsibility of the producer and the importer in regard to recycling, the treatment of the discarded product, and packaging, which contains non-biodegradable microplastic. The Government of Vietnam is committed to improving solid waste management, implementing the single-use plastic reduction model, and supporting collective action to reduce ocean plastic pollution at the source. USAID is committed to support the Government of Vietnam to accomplish this goal and has been working with Vietnam to address plastic pollution.

[33:46] Since 2016, we have focused on forging collaboration among key local actors, like the local Government of Vietnam, the private sector, social organizations, academic institutions, and citizens for the collective effort in reducing plastic pollution at all levels. So, the theory of the different projects, our work, has improved the pilot and the scaling up of plastic waste reduction and management models and on improving the capacity of the local government, organizations, and communities to address plastic pollution.

[34:26] I can name a few here. Vietnam is one of the countries participating in the USAID global program, “Clean Cities, Blue Oceans,” which is a follow-on of the USAID municipal waste recycling program started in 2016. Clean Cities, Blue Oceans has been working in four rapidly urbanized coastal cities to pilot and support locally-led solutions.

[35:05] For example, in Fuhu Island, Vietnam’s largest island with a burgeoning tourism sector, the program is working with the government to develop the Municipal Solid Waste Management Plan, engaging the tourism and hospitality sector to increase waste separation and promote a sustainable approach to waste management to reduce plastic. In addition, technical assistance from the Clean Cities, Blue Ocean program on solid waste management is also highly appreciated by the local government partners. Thanks for setting the scene for that.

[35:36] One of the key challenges in reducing ocean plastic is people’s behavior and their use of single-use plastics. Can you detail for us how USAID is helping you to solve this very complicated problem?

You raise a very, very important point on reducing plastic pollution. That’s called behavior. The behavior chain is very, very important and we are projects, not only at the personal level, for a single person, but we are approaching it at the social behavior chain level, which means that we are using different approaches not only to the customer, because the customer, when they come to the market, they are a buyer and when they buy the food or some of the products in the plastic bag, they are not backed by the customer, but actually by the seller. So, we need to target the seller to reduce using the plastic bag, not the not only the customer. So, that is one side.

[36:55] On the other side, for the customer, we are encouraging them and providing them with different kinds of bags, or even recyclable bags, so that they are using the plastic bag to carry the food or carry what they buy in the market back home. So that is increasing the reuse. For the recycling that is the most challenging at the supermarket-level, for example, we are not having much in terms of the recycling aspect, but mainly in the reducing and then reusing aspects.

[37:33] I understand that you’ve been doing targeted grants and pilot activities, but can you share with us what USAID is doing in Vietnam to address the challenges on a larger scale? Thank you.

As you said, USAID has piloted and tested a variety of activities to support Vietnam, improving solid waste management and reducing ocean plastic since 2016. Now, we are taking the lessons learned from those pilot activities and then scaling up them to a larger program called, Vietnam Action Against Plastic Pollution, that will work to address this issue on a larger scale.

[38:14] This is one of the first country programs launched under the USAID Save our Seas initiative, which Administrator Powers launched last year. USAID’s Vietnam Action Against Plastic Pollution program is our largest program to date that will work in close partnership with the Vietnam Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the Provincial Authority business sector, and with local communities to reduce ocean plastic pollution through data-driven policy and capacity building for local government.

[38:55] We will continue to apply the strategic approach of the collective action that was successfully built from the pilot of the plastic reduction in the local work and the USAID Vietnam reducing pollution programs. The program will also promote appropriately scaled technologies and solutions and the locally-led innovation of preventing plastic pollution in oceans, particularly the reduction of the single-use plastic and the improvement of the solid waste management system at local level.

[39:30] And importantly, it will support the development implementation of the extended producer responsibility policy,which, including the polluter pays principle, are eye-catching. Through these efforts, we will have supported the Government of Vietnam to achieve its goals of reducing plastic litter in oceans by 75 percent by 2030.

Well, thank you for that and we wish you the best in moving ahead with these very important programs.

[40:11] Thank you very much for your time and opportunity to be here to present about the program.

Thanks so much, Zong. We heard briefly about the USAID Clean Cities, Blue Oceans program, but let’s learn more. Clean Cities, Blue Oceans is USAID’s global flagship program under the Save Our Seas initiative that works to combat pollution directly at its source in 10 rapidly urbanizing countries across the globe.

[40:45] We have a brief video to show you now that talks about Clean cities, Blue Oceans work in Peru.

Clean Cities, Blue Ocean is USAID’s program to reduce plastic pollution in the oceans, directly at its source. In Peru, it has been providing support in the cities of Máncora, Paita and Pisco. Implementing successful experiences of local and international organizations, it engages the public and private sectors in this effort.

Máncora has one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, but we always had the problem of collecting garbage. There were mounds of debris in almost every neighborhood.

The project develops local capacity to improve solid waste management. It expands the collection coverage. Helps build behavior change. Increases the separation of waste at its source, improving segregated waste collection and demonstrating the benefits of a circular economy.

USAID’s Clean Cities, Blue Ocean with interventions has reached almost 1.3 million people and benefits more than 72,000 households in Peru.

Now Máncora is clean and beautiful, not only because of the strength of the recyclers. All families and businesses are helping us to have a more beautiful city. I am proud to be a recycler.

We recyclers do great social and environmental work. I would like all of us to be aware of how we can improve the way we live. The city belongs to everyone. Who does not want to go out to a clean beach?

By strengthening waste management and promoting or developing circular economies, city by city, USAID builds sustainable solutions that reduce plastics in the ocean, while empowering vulnerable populations and mitigating pollution that affects human health and our climate.

[42:56] And that’s a good overview of what USAID is doing in Peru.

[43:01] And now I’m pleased to welcome Gunther Mersal, the Chief of Cabinet of Advisors of the Government of Peru’s Ministry of Environment, to tell us a little more. Welcome Gunther. For our first question, can you please tell us about the role local governments have in preventing ocean plastic pollution and some of the challenges that they face? Thank you, Lauren. Well, basically the local government has a key role in the prevention of the contamination of plastics science.

[43:37] They are in charge of the management of solid waste in their jurisdiction. In the case of the Peruvian law, for example, on solid waste management, we established that a segregation at source and selective collection is mandatory in all the Peruvian territory, but also selective collection is in cooperation and with the participation of the recyclers, who are key players in the recycle value change.

[44:21] It’s vital that the local governments and the private sector can establish an alliance to implement solid waste infrastructure for the recovery of usable organic and inorganic solid waste around Peru. The great challenge here in Peru is to consolidate the recycling value change with a territorial approach. We are working on that because basically we need to consolidate, or in some cases, create new markets and opportunities for the recycler, for the recycling materials, but also it’s an important role of the local government to promote and work on social and behavioral change to generate environmental empathy.

[45:06] That environmental empathy allows entrepreneurs to have this change in behavior and to develop good practices around solid waste management. For example, in the case of the citizens, we are supporting the local government to promote at local levels that citizens are more responsible consumers and participate in the segregation at the source of the solid waste management.

[45:48] Also, in the case of the entrepreneurs, we are working with the local government and the different unions of the private sector to promote the business that they are implementing at a local level through transitioning to a civil economy approach. This work, this is the important role of the local government to promote the work in the cities and in this case, the Ministry of Environment is supporting them for this type of action at the local level. Can you describe in some detail the Solid Waste Capacity Index for local governments, which is a tool that USAID developed to help local governments self-assess their capacity to manage waste?

[46:28] What was your experience, if you could tell us, using this tool?

Thank you. Well, basically the tool allows the local governments to self-assess their current capacities to develop a maintenance and adequate and sustainable solid waste management system. As we know, the problem of pollution of the seas by plastic is due to different sources. One of them is the inadequate management of municipal solid waste.

[47:12] For this reason, the index allows municipalities to see their capacities, not only from the technical point of view, but also the tool allows the municipality to analyze all their components that have direct influence in the provision of good service of solid waste management, like the planning, legal framework, financial management, and human resources in charge of providing the service and also, importantly, the community participation. For example, when we apply the tool here in Peru, we apply it in three different cities of different sizes: one is Pisco, the other is Mankara, and the other is Paita.

[47:46] One of the common things we identified during the application is that, for example, only three or five percent of homes segregated the solid waste at the source and they didn’t have a collective selection service. .In the case of the enterprise company, the business did not separate waste. Based on this identification of the problem, the municipality identified the solution. This is the one of the things that the tool allows. It allows the municipality to identify their own solutions.

[48:33] The municipality identified a solution to create a program that is called, Resicla, to promote the separation at the source of waste in homes and households, but also in the different companies, industries, and in the initial three cities.

Can you clarify and describe for us one of the achievements in Peru that demonstrates improved waste management practices, especially at the local level?

[49:09] Of course. Basically, I want to emphasize the last part of the issue that I mentioned, which is the promotion of segregation at the source and selective collection. For example, one of the main goals that the Ministry of Environment is promoting in the case of Peru is to promote the recovery of organic and inorganic solid waste, but also with inclusion of the recyclers.

[49:41] In that sense, we are promoting close cooperation and we are promoting and supporting the local government to implement these programs nationwide. We are promoting that the municipality staff designs and also implements the segregation programs and selective collection with the name, Resicla programs to promote a formal recycling change and to generate increased environmental awareness among citizens.

[50:16] A clear example of the proper solid waste management is the experience of the coastal city of Pisco, one of the cities in which CCB of Peru is working. They have implemented the SIGLA program since September 2022. In the first six months of implementation of the program, their staff are working with around 22,000 households that are participating in the program.

[50:50] Also, 200 companies at the local level, like restaurants, hotels, and other companies in the city of Pisco. They’re recovering around in that period around 67,000 kilograms of usable waste in that period. It’s important to specify the support of the Clean Cities, Blue Oceans project to the municipality of Pisco, but also to involve the recyclers in the process of designing routes to identify and to have all the supporting to have different vehicles for waste collection.

[51:36] As for logistics for the selective collection, the selective collection is provided by the recyclers and not by the municipality. But it’s very, very interesting. The citizens are participating very actively in the program and also all these recyclers now are working in these routes, in the collection of segregated waste and they left their previous work in the dump, which was a very big problem for their health.

Thank you, Gunther, for those answers.

[52:16] And now let’s turn to Anne Aguilos, the program manager for Eco Waste Collection, who is managing a grant from USAID’s Clean Cities, Blue Oceans program to support its Women in Waste Economic Empowerment Activity in the Philippines. Anne, can you tell us more about women’s roles in the waste sector and why it’s so important to promote gender equality in the waste sector?

So, women play a vital role across the solid waste management and recycling sectors.

[52:55] However, they’re mostly in the lowest part of the waste value chain, working mostly in the informal sector, but with very limited opportunity to rank up in the value chain, such as working in the formal waste recycling businesses. Some women have the opportunity to open informal businesses, such as junk shops. However, opportunities for capital and expansion are limited. Due to the informal business setup for the women, they’re often viewed as criminals and experience gender discrimination and they’re prone to harassment.

[53:28] They remain invisible, underpaid, unrecognized, and they’re undervalued for the vital role they play in preventing plastic litter from reaching the ocean. So, promoting gender equality ensures that the women’s perspectives and contributions are recognized. So, if women are given equal opportunities and access to these opportunities, this will give them room to grow and expand on their solid waste management businesses.

[53:58] Anne, thanks for that. Now can you tell us a bit more about the women in waste activity and why that model has been so successful in advancing women in the waste sector?

So CCBO’s Women and Wastes Economic Empowerment Activity empowers women at the lowest rungs of the solid waste and recycling sectors to establish and expand their waste, livelihoods, and businesses. We offer innovative business and personal empowerment training to increase women’s technical and foundational skills.

[54:31] The program is actually based on a five-step process. First, is the basic business empowerment skills training or “Be Best,” which Echoes Coalition is currently implementing. Second is the business plan development. Third is the access to blended financing for business development and expansion. Fourth is advanced business management training, and fifth is the access to public and private sector market opportunities. Eco Waste Coalition, is the implementing grantee we developed along with CCBO and Johns Hopkins University.

[55:05] The biggest curriculum, “Be Best” is currently being conducted in different cities here in Metro Manila. It is a 5–6-day training on solid waste management, gender, occupational safety and health, and introduction to business, which includes different entrepreneurial skills, like risk taking, negotiation skills, and also personal empowerment and leadership. So, “Be Best” serves as the foundation for the next phases.

[55:33] So, after completing the “Be Best” program, women trainees are expected to develop their business model canvases, including specific action plans. So, graduates who are interested in proceeding to the next phases must first qualify for mentoring, which is administered by our partner, Worldwide Fund for Nature Philippines. So, before they can apply for the activity funding, which from both CCBO and Coca-Cola Foundation, EEEC conducts regular support to graduates monitoring and documenting their progress as they pitch their business plans, start or expand their businesses, and participate in advanced business skills training.

[56:05] Then, we also do periodic monitoring of all business graduates until the end of the activity. So, ultimately, the goal of WE is to create an enabling environment for women in ways to succeed in solid waste management businesses. As many of us know, starting new programs often doesn’t go the way you hope it does.

[56:35] So, could you share maybe the top three lessons that you’ve learned doing this and how that can help inform others who are going to proceed with this kind of work?

It’s very important to have a better understanding of the WE participants, including their needs. Their constraints and abilities should be considered prior to conducting the training. We use human centered-design in order for us to be able to address the needs of the women, and also this is very important to develop their personal agency from the beginning.

[57:05] They were able to realize their values and their potential. They became aware of their limitations as well as their positive qualities. So, as they journey through, we’ve seen the transformation in these women. Before, they were shy, they cannot talk in front of other people. They find it hard to recover from any loss in their businesses, so they have to deal with their limiting beliefs because of the stigma that they experienced in life.

[57:42] But now, after journeying in WE, these women can hold the microphone in front of people. They preside over community meetings. They now know how to dress up and put on makeup. They now know how to negotiate, manage their own money, and see opportunities. They even now own their own junk shops and operate their collection system. So, being able to build up this personal agency is very important.

[58:11] Also worth mentioning is the dynamics of the WE partners, like USAID, CCBO, Echoes Coalition, Worldwide Fund for Nature Philippines, and the Coca-Cola Foundation Philippines, and also, our partners in the public and private sectors. That synergy, that active collaboration, promptly resolving issues and challenges that we meet, exploring possibilities and opportunities, and that genuine concern to help these women become the best version of themselves.

[58:44] All of those things sound incredibly valuable and provide important lessons, and I wish you well in your future with this program. You guys are doing amazing work and thank you for coming. I want to thank all the panelists for joining us today and sharing their insights and their experiences. We have much to learn from their important work addressing this challenge on the ground. I would also like to thank Senators Whitehouse and Sullivan and Gillian Caldwell for their leadership and support on this critical issue.

[59:20] Looking forward, obviously there’s a lot of work that still needs to be done to stem the tide of ocean plastics. But today we’ve heard some promising solutions and approaches that USAID is taking to address ocean plastics—the collective action in Vietnam, women’s empowerment in the waste sector, and catalytic investments in strengthening local governments to improve management of local waste systems. All of those will play an important role going forward.

[59:54] Thanks to USAID and its partners for all of your work this past year. I look forward to learning more about USAID’s work in the coming year, and I wish you all continued success.