Page 49 - Plastics News Issue September2025
P. 49
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
PLASTICS USE & WASTE TO SOAR IN
SOUTHEAST, EAST ASIA WITHOUT STRINGENT POLICIES, WARNS OECD
ith the correct policy direction, im- million tonnes by 2050. The APT region includes
plementation, mismanaged waste, the 10 ASEAN countries — Brunei, Cambodia, In-
Wincluding plastic leakage, could drop donesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines,
by 97%. Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam — along with
China, Japan and South Korea.
Canoe with man picking plastic bottles from the
heavily polluted waters of Kali Besar canal, Ja- This surge, driven largely by short-lived prod-
karta, Java, Indonesia. Under the Global High ucts like packaging, is expected to trigger a par-
Stringency scenario, plastic use in 2050 could allel rise in plastic waste, which is set to more
drop by 28 per cent and plastic waste by 23 per than double from 113 million tonnes to 242 million
cent. Photo for representation. tonnes over the same period, according to the
report.
Plastic use and waste are set to spiral out of
control in southeast and east Asia, unless coun- Packaging waste alone will jump from 49 million
tries urgently overhaul current policies, warned tonnes to 91 million tonnes, underscoring the
a new report by the Organization for Economic scale of the region’s growing waste challenge.
According to the report, China is projected to
see the largest absolute increase in plastic waste
in the APT region, rising from 76 million tonnes in
2022 to 160 million tonnes by 2050.
But the most dramatic relative growth will occur
in lower-middle-income ASEAN countries such
as Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, where
plastic waste is expected to nearly quadruple —
from 7.5 million tonnes to 28 million tonnes.
Context: Mismanaged plastic waste to rise
70%
Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Despite some improvements in waste manage-
Under current policies, plastic use in the ASEAN ment, most plastic waste in the region continues
Plus Three (APT) region is projected to nearly to be landfilled, incinerated or mismanaged. In
double from 152 million tonnes in 2022 to 280 2022, 29 per cent of the region’s plastic waste
September 2025 PLASTICS NEWS 49
