The problem
Despite investments in recyclable packaging, circularity remains a challenge. While PET collection rates in SEA are high—driven largely by the informal waste sector—contamination diverts valuable material away from bottle-to-bottle recycling. Consumer education on proper sorting is crucial to improving recovery and reducing inventory obsolescence in recycling streams.
Flexible packaging, such as snack bags (PP-based materials), faces even greater challenges, with low collection rates, limited recycling infrastructure, and poor inventory visibility across the value chain. Without scalable solutions, these materials continue to end up in landfills or as pollution.
What we’re looking for (and beyond!)
Innovative, scalable solutions that
Improve sorting efficiency to reduce contamination and enhance material recovery
Enable high-quality recycling for flexible packaging and hard-to-recycle plastics
Enhance consumer engagement and education to drive better waste sorting at the source
Deploy AI-driven automation for precise plastic separation
Support scalable reverse logistics for integrated reuse and recycling networks
For this theme, we’ve partnered with PepsiCo as our brand partner. They’ve played a key role in shaping the challenge statement with the goal of finding the right partner for a joint pilot to tackle critical collection challenges. A pilot with PepsiCo will be contingent on the applicability of the selected technologies to their operations.
