London Packaging Week live: Plastic Bank’s founder backs “waste as currency” to spur circularity

22 Sep 2023 --- At the ongoing London Packaging Week, Packaging Insights sat down with David Katz, founder and chairman of Plastic Bank, to delve into the organization’s approach to tackling plastic pollution and poverty.

Katz sheds light on the social enterprise’s mission to create a wide scale circular economy for materials, particularly plastics. He poses a thought-provoking question: “If every piece of packaging you encountered could be easily exchanged for a monetary reward, how much plastic waste would we still see in the environment?”

Plastic Bank is not just addressing the plastic problem but also aiming to change how society views and utilizes materials. 

Katz comments on the recently released UN Plastic Pollution Treaty’s zero draft, expressing support for its efforts to address the waste management crisis. He acknowledges that while no solution is perfect, starting somewhere is essential and the treaty represents a significant step forward.

“We need to stop plastic from flowing into the ocean, and the plastics treaty is entitled to turn off the tap. It’s about looking at the root causes of the problem and working together to find solutions like EPR and other laws to deliver change. Will it [the treaty] be perfect? Probably not. But is it a start? Absolutely,” he tells us.

Solution or pollution
Businesses must embrace a regenerative, purpose-driven economy, believing this is the path to the future, according to Katz.

Trash to cash: Plastic Bank incentivizes recycled plastic packaging production.“For packaging at large or consumers at large, it is recognizing that you’re either going to be a part of the solution or part of the pollution. And ultimately, your competition isn’t necessarily someone who’s in your market today. It’s going to be those millennials showing up that will find a different way that they’re going to compete against you,” he explains.

“They’re going to compete against you with your ‘why’ because people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do what you do. You can be redundant and irrelevant or you can develop and be in the regenerative economy, the next economy.”

Circularity “inevitable”
When questioned about the possibility of the plastics packaging industry achieving a fully circular economy, Katz responds: “I don’t think it’s possible, I think that it’s inevitable.” 

“When we create more circularity, it’ll reduce the demand for increased material production. Now, considering the Earth has around 12 trillion kilos of plastic, almost everything we’ve ever produced is still here, a small amount incinerated, but it’s still here. And we keep making more, where the material is almost infinitely recyclable.” 

He encourages society to envision a future where all materials return to circulation rather than ending up in landfills or the ocean. Katz asserts that Plastic Bank is working toward this goal by creating the infrastructure required for material recovery.

According to Plastic Bank, over 80% of plastic entering marine ecosystems and the environment originates from impoverished areas. To address this inequality, the social enterprise establishes stores in these communities where residents can exchange plastic and other materials for vital goods and services such as access to education, medical insurance, Wi-Fi and cooking fuel. Recycled plastic pellets on display at London Packaging Week.

Trash into cash
Plastic Bank operates as a for-profit organization, collecting plastic from vulnerable coastal communities and returning it to companies committed to using recycled materials in their packaging. This approach allows consumers to play a role in poverty reduction and environmental preservation.

At London Packaging Week, Katz is presenting on how Plastic Bank continues to turn trash into cash. The organization collaborates with approximately 300 global partners. 

These partnerships enable businesses to participate in circularity by buying recycled materials or acquiring plastic credits, contributing to the collection and return of even more materials.

Katz also discusses the challenges that Plastic Bank and general society face. He points out that the traditional public corporation’s duty to prioritize shareholder value over other considerations has contributed to the environmental crisis. Nevertheless, he believes that providing for-profit solutions for brands can encourage them to participate in creating positive change.

Regarding the potential compatibility of circularity with increased production, Katz argues that increased circularity could reduce the demand for producing new materials.

By Radhika Sikaria, with reporting from Louis Gore-Langton at London Packaging Week