World Environment Day 2025: Innovative solutions for tackling plastic pollution
- World Environment Day takes place on 5 June every year and in 2025 it’s focused on tackling plastic pollution.
- Around 19 million tonnes of plastic waste are leaked into the environment annually.
- These 8 innovative solutions are helping to tackle the problem across the plastics lifecycle.
The numbers around plastic waste and plastic pollution are stark.
That surge now generates some 350 million tonnes of plastic waste each year.
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Plastic, of course, has revolutionized many aspects of our lives, contributing significant advances in areas like food hygiene. However, without action to deal with waste plastic, pollution will remain an issue.
That’s why this year’s World Environment Day, on 5 June, is focused on taking collective action to #BeatPlasticPollution. Ahead of this year’s event and Global Plastics Treaty negotiations in August, here are just some real-world solutions that are already tackling the problem head-on.
What is the World Economic Forum doing about plastic pollution?
The world produces over 430 million tonnes of plastic each year, with 19 million tonnes leaking into the environment annually. Plastic pollution fuels climate change, biodiversity loss and ocean degradation, threatening ecosystems, public health and livelihoods.
With plastic waste projected to rise dramatically by 2040, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Since its launch in 2018, the World Economic Forum’s Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP) has brought together governments, businesses, and civil society to combat plastic pollution and advance a circular economy for plastics. By informing multilateral efforts at the global level and building national partnerships, GPAP translates commitments into action for a sustainable, inclusive future free from plastic pollution.
GPAP has forged partnerships with 25 countries across Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia, making it the world’s largest initiative tackling plastic pollution.
- Driven change for over 1.5 billion people worldwide.
- Mobilized $3.17 billion to combat plastic pollution.
- Improved livelihoods for 12,000 informal waste workers.
- Published 10 evidence-based action roadmaps on financing, biodiversity and gender equality and social inclusion.
Replacing microplastics with food waste
One way to tackle plastic pollution is to create alternative products that, while offering the same properties, are better for the planet.
This has the benefit of removing fossil-fuel-derived products from the plastic production process, as well as being water-degradable and home compostable.
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Refining recycling
The industrial technology company is a signatory to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy Global Commitment and aims to recycle five million tonnes of plastic waste by the end of the decade.
Plastic-munching enzymes
Researchers from a number of institutions around the globe are experimenting with the use of enzymes to break down plastics.
Take, for example, work from the University of Texas at Austin that used an enzyme to break down plastics in as little as 24 hours. By using machine learning, the researchers were able to generate mutations in a natural enzyme that allow bacteria to degrade PET plastics.
You can watch the process in the video below.
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Building biodegradable plastics
As Yingxue Yu and Markus Flury write in Nature, such biodegradable plastics are designed to be metabolized by microorganisms into CO2, CH4 and microbial biomass. They’re particularly valuable where recycling and reuse are not feasible.
Innovations in this space have significant advantages, but like conventional plastics, effective testing, clear labelling and effective end-of-life management are still essential to ensure their promise is fulfilled.
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AI-powered plastics sorting
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Embracing the circular economy
One of way of reducing the amount of plastic pollution in our ecosystems is to simply reuse plastics at the end of their life cycle, in what is known as the circular economy.
Sykell’s asset management platform, CIRCULAR ERP, helps businesses track and manage their reusable plastic containers.
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Capturing waste from rivers
All of the innovative solutions to produce more environmentally-friendly alternatives or boost recycling won’t stop some plastic from still reaching the environment.
Bringing it all together
Events like World Environment Day are important for raising awareness, but as the examples above demonstrate, vital work is underway year-round to create real-world solutions.
Solving this global problem can’t be achieved through technological innovation alone however. Government policy and infrastructural investment are necessary to turn the tide on plastic pollution. Australia have demonstrated how this can be done in this video:
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11 million tonnes of plastic waste leaks into the ocean each year. By 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean — if we do not take urgent, collective action.
—Global Plastic Action Partnership
”Organizations like the World Economic Forum and its Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP) bring together stakeholders from across the public and private sectors, as well as civil society and academia, to help build momentum in tackling plastic pollution.
GPAP is the world’s largest initiative tackling plastic pollution, with 25 country partnerships at present.