Jan 24 2018
Today at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation will announce the winners of the $1 million Circular Materials Challenge. Combined with the necessary infrastructure, the winners' innovations could prevent the equivalent of 100 garbage bags per second of plastic waste being created.
The Circular Materials Challenge, run in collaboration with NineSigma, forms part of the $2 million New Plastics Economy Innovation Prize, funded by Wendy Schmidt, Lead Philanthropic Partner of the Foundation’s New Plastics Economy initiative.
Together with the winners of the $1 million Circular Design Challenge announced last November, the five winners of the Circular Materials Challenge will each receive a $200,000 share and join a 12 month accelerator programme to make their innovations marketable at scale - with potential to contribute to a system in which plastics do not become waste.
Today, the list of leading companies working towards using 100% reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging by 2025 or earlier has grown to 11 – Amcor, Ecover, evian, L’Oréal, Mars, M&S, PepsiCo, The Coca-Cola Company, Unilever, Walmart and Werner & Mertz – together representing more than 6 million tonnes of plastic packaging per year.
In December, the French government reaffirmed an important commitment towards a systemic solution by pledging to recycle 100% of plastics by 2025. Last week in the UK, WRAP and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation announced a new collaboration to establish the first national implementation initiative of the New Plastics Economy.
These significant steps provide real examples of what is needed to create a system in which plastics do not become waste.They demonstrate an emerging consensus to tackle the causes of the waste plastic problem and will help to inspire further innovation. Others around the world must follow their lead.