• Since 2019, the Alliance has reduced 378,147 tonnes^[1] of unmanaged plastic waste and captured value from 418,529 tonnes of plastic waste.
• The Alliance has catalysed US$641 million of funding commitments from third parties and impact investors since 2019.
• The Alliance advanced Country Programs in five priority markets and its Thematic Program in Europe and North America.

SINGAPORE, Sept. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Alliance to End Plastic Waste today released its 2025 Progress Report, Strategy in Action, marking its first year of putting Strategy 2030 into practice and highlighting early progress towards addressing systems barriers to circularity and accelerating the transition to a circular economy for plastics. 

In 2025, the Alliance reduced 138,162 tonnes of unmanaged plastic waste and valorised 165,317 tonnes, bringing cumulative totals since inception to 378,147 tonnes reduced and 418,529 tonnes valorised. Beyond tonnage, the Alliance has catalysed US$641 million in funding commitments from third parties and impact investors since 2019. Its education and behaviour-change initiatives have reached over 1.5 million people since inception. In 2025, it engaged 559 organisations to finance, develop, and implement its projects.

Under Strategy 2030, the Alliance is transitioning from smaller, standalone projects to larger-scale integrated Country and Thematic Programs, focusing its efforts where they can have the greatest impact: helping countries move up the recycling maturity curve and tackling complex, cross-market challenges such as flexible plastics. In 2025, the Alliance deepened partnerships across a range of stakeholders to scale impact, co-fund initiatives, and demonstrate solutions for plastics circularity that can be scaled and replicated.

"2025 was an important first year for Strategy 2030 as we strengthened the foundations for impact at scale and systems change. We are seeing early results in markets where the need is greatest but delivering solutions that create greater, lasting impact takes sustained effort, strong partnerships, and commitment. We have made important progress this year and are building momentum for the years ahead," said Jacob Duer, President and CEO, Alliance to End Plastic Waste.

Country Programs: building waste management systems where they are needed most

The Alliance's Country Programs help countries strengthen their recycling systems by improving collection, sorting, and recycling, while strengthening demand for recycled materials. Programs are currently established in Brazil, GCC (Saudi Arabia), India, Indonesia, and South Africa. 

In Indonesia, the Alliance is driving system-level change by scaling solutions through coordinated interventions across the waste management system, under the Government of Indonesia and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)'s Solid Waste Management for Sustainable Urban Development (SWM-SUD) project. In 2025, the Alliance launched an integrated waste management pilot in Malang Regency, East Java, bringing together source segregation, improved collection and sorting, and stronger links with local recyclers. The Alliance has committed up to US$40 million to apply principles from the Malang pilot across multiple SWM-SUD cities and regencies, helping scale integrated waste management systems and advance plastics circularity across Indonesia.

In India, an Alliance-financed municipal waste processing facility was established in partnership with municipal authorities in Mathura-Vrindavan. The facility is now running at 75% capacity and is expected to process up to 300 tonnes of waste a day and divert 80% of the city's waste from landfill.

Thematic Program focused on a market-driven approach to flexible plastics

The Alliance's Thematic Programs tackle cross-market barriers to circularity, beginning with flexible plastics, which are among the most widely used yet hardest-to-recycle materials.

In 2025, the Alliance advanced projects in Europe and North America under its Flexibles Program, applying a market-driven strategy that starts with end-market needs to ensure that solutions are built around viable markets. This means aligning the waste management system with end-market requirements, from collection and sorting through to recycling.

In Phoenix, Arizona, the Alliance is putting this approach into practice through a new collection model for flexible plastics from commercial and industrial sites. Working with RME Defeats Waste, the project brings on-site baling and on-demand collection to smaller generators, including manufacturers and hospitals, that generate too little material to make traditional collection economically viable, creating a practical pathway to recycling where one did not previously exist.

The Alliance has also commissioned a study of the U.S. flexible plastics system to map supply and demand and quantify end-market opportunities for recycled flexible plastics.

Catalysing capital to accelerate systems change

Mobilising capital remains one of the biggest barriers to building a circular economy for plastics at scale. Over the last year, the Alliance continued to expand its role as a catalyst for circular plastics investment, using its capital and expertise to de-risk projects, strengthen investment pipelines, and unlock wider pools of financing from public, private, and philanthropic partners.

The Plastic Circularity Strategy, managed by Lombard Odier Investment Managers (LOIM), which the Alliance helped establish through seed funding and technical advice, reached its final close in summer 2026 and is continuing to deploy growth equity capital into companies developing solutions that advance plastic circularity. These include Spain's Fych Technologies, whose patented process recycles complex multilayer plastics, and Switzerland's Bloom Biorenewables, which converts non-edible biomass into bio-based chemicals and materials.

Read the Alliance to End Plastic Waste's 2025 Progress Report, Strategy in Action, for further information.

About the Alliance to End Plastic Waste 

The Alliance to End Plastic Waste is an independent, global non-profit organisation that aims to create a circular economy for plastic and end plastic waste and pollution. We partner with stakeholders across the value chain including the private sector, governments, other financers, and NGOs, to advance this vision. 

This involves developing, deploying and de-risking solutions related to the design, collection, sorting, recycling, and reuse of plastic. We foster innovation, collaboration, and knowledge-transfer and mobilise funding from development and private sources to support initiatives at scale. 

Together with our members and partners, we are progressing economically viable, environmentally beneficial, and socially responsible solutions to create a circular economy for plastic. Find out more at endplasticwaste.org 

^[1] All tonnage figures cited are in metric tonnes.

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