Resources

The Vietnam waste assessment and brand audit report 2018-2020 highlights and recommendations for initiating Zero Waste in Vietnam.

In the wine industry, single-use glass is heavily used for packaging. On the one hand, glass has the greatest environmental impacts compared to other packaging materials (i.e. PET, aluminium, and beverage carton). On the other hand, glass is 100% reusable and 100% recyclable at the end of its life cycle, and is an inert material, which makes it more suitable as a food contact material. The reWINE project proves that a circular and more sustainable way of consuming wine is possible.

The world is drowning in plastics. This study zooms in specifically on single-use plastics. These are the most harmful and visible form of plastic pollution. We are talking about a real plastic crisis, which is increasingly endangering our environment and our health, and which also poses serious financial risks.

A review of international commitments for reducing plastic and waste-sector GHG emissions. According to the IPCC, waste management is one of three sectors with the greatest potential to reduce surface temperature rise in the next 10-20 years. Zero waste is an essential, affordable, and practical route to significant emissions reductions, yet is neglected in most countries’ climate plans (Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs).

In this 23 September 2021 photo, Felix Weber, a research associate at the Institute of Environmental and Process Engineering at RhineMain University of Applied Sciences, sits in front of a picture of a 3D microscope with plastic particles. The specific dangers posed by microplastics or the even smaller nanoplastics is still the subject of research. But it is already clear that particularly small particles can penetrate cells and trigger reactions there. These nanoparticles are found in cosmetics, for example.

As public concern grows about mountains of plastic trash, the plastics industry is promoting technologies that it misleadingly calls “chemical recycling” (also known as advanced recycling, molecular recycling, and chemical conversion) and touts as a solution to the plastic crisis. But it is a false solution.

As governments prepare to discuss a global instrument to tackle plastic pollution, IPEN has published a number of studies showing significant obstacles for countries seeking to implement safe plastic circular economies. The studies reveal that countries are unable to handle large volumes of diverse plastics waste streams safely, and the reality that, without regulations requiring plastic ingredients to be labeled, countries are blindly allowing known toxic chemicals onto their markets in plastic products.

This short executive summary combines IPEN's two new reports on the chemicals in plastic pellets that endanger human health and the environment — the report "Plastic pellets found on beaches all over the world contain toxic chemicals", in which we sampled and tested pellets collected on beaches from over 20 countries, and the report "Widespread chemical contamination of recycled plastic pellets globally", in which we investigated chemicals in pellets made from recycled waste plastics.

Health and environmental groups call for international action to control plastic chemicals, and the scaling down of plastics production, to curb growing crisis

Feeling the pressure from increasingly sustainability-minded consumers and governments, the plastics industry is now promoting “chemical recycling” -- technology that turns plastic back into plastic -- as the silver bullet to solve the plastics crisis. However, of the dozens of “chemical recycling” facilities proposed since the early 2000s, just three are operational, and none are known to have successfully turned plastic into new plastic.