Addressing Marine Plastics. A Roadmap to a Circular Economy.

Type of action

Action domain

Action description

Time frame

Leading stakeholder

Supporting stakeholder

Main life cycle stage

Scale

Create cross-cutting enabling conditions

Policy/ regulatory/ voluntary agreements

Develop extended producer responsibility (EPR) policy and support its implementation in relevant sectors, to encourage design for reuse and recycling, while taking care of end-of-life products by setting up collection and recycling systems Develop public-private partnerships, with brands/industry contributing to the set-up of initiatives and infrastructure to manage their products after use Voluntary elimination of problematic and unnecessary plastic products (possibly stimulated or adapted by policy) Instigate bans or restrictions on products, materials or additives that are known to cause adverse environmental and health impacts, have a high probability to end up in the environment or have little/ no chance of being reused, recycled or composted. This needs to be done providing alternative solutions and substitutions with less impacts Ban or otherwise restrict products with high plastic losses to the environment (such as microbeads) Innovate on new polymers, to improve its reusability and recyclability back into high quality materials Innovation in business models to shift from single-use to reusable plastic packaging and products

National and sub-national

Short-term

National governments

Producers, waste management companies

Collection, sorting, processing and disposal

Create cross-cutting enabling conditions

Policy/ regulatory/ voluntary agreements

Sub-national

Medium to long term

Brands, waste management companies and governments (including local governments)

Intergovernmental organizations/ National governments

Collection, sorting, processing and disposal

Eliminate

Technical product/ service innovation

Global and regional

Short-Term

Global brands

Intergovernmental organization/ regional organizations

production

Eliminate

Policy/ regulatory/ voluntary agreements

Global and national

Medium to long term

National governments

National producers

raw material

Eliminate

Policy/ regulatory/ voluntary agreements

National

short-term

National governments

Researchers/ academia

production

Innovate

Technical product/ service innovation

Global

Medium to long term

Global brands

Researchers/ academia

raw material

Innovate

Technical product/ service innovation

Global and regional

Short to Medium term

Global brands/ producers

National producers

production

14