Southeast Asia requires US$178 billion to stop plastic waste from leaking into the oceans by 2050, according to a study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
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Lower-middle income countries in the region like the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar will shoulder the most cost, with more than 3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) that needs to be spent by mid-century, read the study by the OECD, an international organisation of the world’s wealthiest countries, which monitors aid spending by rich donor states.
Indonesia, which was modeled separately from the other lower-middle income countries on the basis of data availability, faces a macroeconomic waste management cost that will exceed 2 per cent of GDP.
The Philippines accounts for about 35 per cent of global plastic waste leakage into the oceans annually, far surpassing any other country worldwide. Indonesia and Vietnam are each responsible for roughly 10 per cent of global marine plastic waste.
Developing countries need a more extensive overhaul of their economic and waste management systems, unlike high income countries like Singapore and Brunei as well as upper middle income countries such as Malaysia and Thailand, said Ruben Bibas, economist at the environment directorate at OECD.
The macroeconomic impact of curbing plastic waste will be felt the most in lower-middle income countries in Southeast Asia. Image: OECD
The US$178 billion estimate comes from plastic waste collection costs, waste sorting, and waste treatment for plastic recycling, incineration and landfilling needed if the region wants to eliminate plastic waste, said Bibas, who is also the report’s lead author.
“Implementing high stringency policies will require a redirection of financial flows towards circular solutions and a significant additional mobilisation to cover solutions along the plastics lifecycle,” Bibas told Eco-Business.
Beyond the waste management investment costs calculated, the effective implementation of such a policy package to nearly eliminate mismanaged plastic waste and leakage will require overcoming key challenges such as weak monitoring and enforcement, limited local capacity, and the need to integrate informal workers who play a critical role in the waste sector, he added.
Regional policy action alone cannot eliminate plastic pollution entirely
Ambitious regional policy action from the Asean Plus Three countries (APT), which include Southeast Asia along with Japan, South Korea and China, may eliminate plastic leakage originating among their neighbours. But plastic pollution, including that in shared aquatic environments, cannot be fully addressed through regional action alone, read the analysis.
High and upper middle-income countries in the region are capable of implementing more stringent policies than lower middle-income countries to eliminate their plastic leakage, but they remain vulnerable to inflows originating from elsewhere, found researchers.
It noted that in 2022, the APT had 1.3 million tonnes (Mt) of leaked plastics that originated from outside the region and remained stranded in their aquatic environments. On the same year, 1.1 Mt of plastic leaked from the APT region to the rest of the world.
This shows that while plastic leakage from land-based sources in a given country is primarily determined by domestic activities, policies and waste management infrastructure, plastic pollution is a global issue, both in its causes and its consequences, said Bibas.
“[As such] given the transboundary nature of plastic pollution and the uneven distribution of costs of policy action, global cooperation is essential for effective and equitable solutions.”
