Less than 10% of the 350 million tonnes of plastic used each year is currently being recycled. The Plastic Waste Reduction Program – recently launched by standard-setter Verra – aims to support and scale up activities that increase plastic waste recycling and/or collection from the environment.
The Plastic Waste Reduction Program (Plastic Program) is a crediting mechanism that drives investment into projects that verifiably reduce plastic in the environment anywhere in the world. Under this program, projects that collect and/or recycle plastic waste and meet the requirements in the Plastic Waste Reduction Standard (Plastic Standard) and applicable accounting methodology are eligible to register with the program and issue Plastic Credits. These credits can be purchased by companies that have maximized efforts to reduce the plastic footprint of their operations and are interested in further mitigation of plastic waste beyond their own value chains.
The Plastic Program offers two methodologies, one for plastic waste mechanical recycling and one for plastic waste collection. Projects should employ one or both of these methodologies for the implementation and quantification of their plastic waste collection and/or recycling activities. To guarantee that the Plastic Standard requirements are met and the methodologies are properly applied, all projects are independently audited. This is done through the process of validation and verification. Control Union is an approved Validation and Verification Body (VVB) and offers:
- Validation of project design (before or during project implementation); and
- Periodic verifications of the amount of collected/recycled plastic waste (during and/or after project implementation).
- The figure below gives an overview of the whole process, from project inception to the issuance of Plastic Credits.
