Costa Rica presents roadmap for plastic circularity and waste management

Costa Rica has launched a National Plastic Action Roadmap to reduce plastic pollution. The roadmap seeks to strengthen plastic use policies, support financing for material alternatives, enhance stakeholder coordination, promote behavioral change, and ensure a “just transition to a circular economy.”

Costa Rica’s targets include decreasing its plastic pollution by 91% in land and water and reaching 54% plastic circularity by 2040. The roadmap uses a data-driven methodology to assess plastic pollution, explore solutions, and outline the path forward. 

According to the National Plastic Action Roadmap, “plastic pollution is a cross-cutting issue that particularly affects vulnerable populations, including rural communities, Indigenous groups, people of African descent, and women.”

Costa Rica is also part of the World Economic Forum’s Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP) — the World Economic Forum’s multi-stakeholder platform dedicated to tackling plastic pollution and waste reduction commitments and the world’s largest initiative tackling plastic pollution.

According to the GPAP, if successfully implemented, Costa Rica’s roadmap could result in a 76% reduction of open-air plastic burning, 39% less plastic waste going to landfills, 26% savings in government plastic waste management costs, and 24% less GHG emissions. 

Despite its comparatively small size, the Central American country boasts 6% of the planet’s biodiversity, at threat due to plastic pollution.

To tackle this issue, Costa Rica launched its National Plastic Action Partnership (NPAP) last year and is now advancing efforts through a national roadmap that puts a “multi-stakeholder approach in action.”

The GPAP says that at the heart of the NPAP is its Steering Committee which includes Costa Rica’s government, the private sector, academia, and civil society. It works to provide a “strategic direction” for the National Plastic Action Roadmap and ensure the process remains inclusive and participatory. 

Tackling mismanaged plastic

Despite its small size, Costa Rica holds 6% of the planet’s biodiversity.The GPAP outlines the challenges and opportunities behind Costa Rica’s plastic economy. 

In 2022, the nation generated an estimated 232,000 tons of plastic waste, 46 kg per person. Evidence suggests that around 20% of this waste was mismanaged, ending up in rivers, oceans, and soils or being openly burned.

Costa Rica has already taken legislative and regulatory steps to tackle these issues, including through:

Introducing a ban on single-use plastics in areas managed by the National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC).

Law 9786, declaring the reduction of single-use plastic pollution a matter of public interest.

The National Plan for the Sustainable Management of Single-Use Plastics, targeting 100% reusable, recyclable, or compostable plastics by 2030.

Law 8839 on Integrated Solid Waste Management.

“With a strong emphasis on collaboration, NPAP Costa Rica focuses on promoting innovation, strengthening cross-sector partnerships, and inspiring sustainable behavior change,” the GPAP outlines. 

The country’s private sector is playing an active role in slashing plastic pollution, with companies like the Ficus Box introducing reusable packaging as a tangible alternative to single-use plastic.

Other nations are also taking decisive steps to tackle pollution caused by single-use plastic, including Pakistan, the Philippines, the Netherlands, and the US.