Reuse Solutions to Beat Plastic Pollution: UNEA 5.2 side event

28 February 2022

With only 9% of global plastic waste being recycled, managing waste once it’s generated is not nearly enough. How can we scale waste prevention solutions focused on reuse? This session convenes leading stakeholders and voices for change, calling for urgent action and embedding reuse as a critical tool in the fight against plastic pollution. The UN Environment Programme, WWF and the World Economic Forum call for accelerating multistakeholder collaboration, announcing the joint launch in 2022 of a one-stop-shop Reuse Portal, a global collaboration platform engaging innovators, businesses, policymakers, activists, experts, consumers and citizens to build the tools and networks for shifting from single-use to reuse.

The Life Cycle Initiative (hosted by UNEP) has delivered evidence on how to best deal with single-use plastic products pollution. The work considers various scenarios and supports the scaling-up of existing holistic solutions. This has resulted in the publishing of several meta-analyses of life cycle assessments covering bags, bottles, takeaway food packaging’s, beverage cups, cutlery, nappies and menstrual products.  The overall key message is that reuse is usually the better option among other disposal alternatives. More outcomes of this work can be found in the ‘Choose to Reuse’ video campaign and the summaries for decision-makers in English, French and Spanish.

This side-event’s objectives:
1. Raise awareness and shift mindsets on the urgent need to accelerate and scale reuse solutions to address plastic pollution
2. Call on governments and businesses to create enabling environments for scaling reuse solutions
3. Call for multistakeholder collaboration and build excitement for the Reuse Portal, a global one-stop-shop resource and collaboration to advance reuse

Click here for more information and to register for the webinar during UNEA 5.2 on Monday, 28 February 2022 from 18:15-19:45 Eastern Africa Time.

Preliminary Session Structure: Reuse Solutions to Beat Plastic Pollution

1. Welcome: Marco Lambertini, Director General, WWF
2. Introduction by moderator: Lauren Phipps, Vice President & Senior Analyst, Circular Economy, GreenBiz Group
3. Teaser video about the Reuse Portal
4. Setting the scene

• • Marco Lambertini, Director General, WWF
  • Børge Brende, President, World Economic Forum

Interactive poll

5. Panel A – Inspiring change

• Panel facilitation: Tom Szaky, Founder and CEO, TerraCycle/Loop
  • Tiza Mafira, Executive Director, Plastic Bag Diet Movement Indonesia
  • Joshua Amponsem, Founder, Green Africa Youth Organization
  • Benjamin von Wong, Founder and Artist, Von Wong Inc (invited)
  • Kirils Jegorovs, Co-Founder, Circolution

Moderated discussion & interactive poll

6. Panel B – Shifting the system

• Panel facilitation: Kirsten Barnes, Project Lead South African Plastics Pact
  • Bérangère Abba, Secretary of State, Ministry of Ecological Transition, France
  • H.E. Ms Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, Head of Government, Mexico City (invited)
  • Mark Schneider, Chief Executive Officer, Nestlé
  • H.E. Mr Javier Naranjo, Minister of Environment, Chile
  • Abigail Aguilar, Campaign Strategist, Greenpeace

Moderated discussion & interactive poll

7. Closing remarks: Inger Andersen, Executive Director, UN Environment Programme
8. Conclusions and next steps