Circular Economy Strategy Aims to Eliminate Plastic Waste and Litter in Great Lakes Region

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Beautiful landscape of Lake Superior northern shore from above in Ontario, Canada
To reduce and eventually eliminate litter and plastic waste in the Great Lakes Region, a five-year Circular Economy Strategy and Action Plan was developed. // Stock Photo

Resource Recycling Systems Inc. (RRS) in Ann Arbor has released a five-year Circular Economy Strategy and Action Plan, which was developed by the Council of the Great Lakes Region (CGLR) as part its Circular Great Lakes Initiative, with extensive research support and advice from RRS.

CGLR’s goal is to bring a broad coalition, diverse perspectives, and interests together to forge a future without waste and litter in the bi-national Great Lakes region, starting with plastics.

“The RRS Team is proud to work with CGLR through its Circular Great Lakes initiative to transform the way plastic waste is currently managed in the Great Lakes Region,” says Susan Graff, vice president of global corporate sustainability at RRS.

“The plan details practical steps to capture more of today’s most prevalent forms of packaging for new product manufacture locally in U.S. and Canada. From our work with the paper industry to achieve high recycling rates for their material, we know private-public partnership is critical to success.”

Nearly 5 million pieces of plastic litter were collected along the Great Lakes’ shoreline between 2015 and 2020 according to the gap analysis RRS performed to develop the Action Plan.

Furthermore, the analysis of materials management best practices found that to achieve the U.S. EPA’s national recycling rate of 50 percent in the region on the way to closing the loop and forming a circular materials economy, an additional 3 million tons of plastics with a commodity value of over $400 million must be recovered and recycled, requiring 60 percent more processing capacity and a stable and scalable marketplace across the region.

With data and insights from more than 20 leading multi-sector and multi-stakeholder groups representing business, government, academia, and the non-profit sector, the Circular Economy Strategy and Action Plan provides a clear roadmap for pursuing the policy and consumer behavior changes, as well as the investments in collection and processing expansion modernization and end market development, necessary to accelerate the transition to a regional circular economy.

“80 percent of the region’s post-consumer waste is lost to landfills, including valuable films and flexible plastics, or worse, it’s ending up in our environment as litter and plastic pollution in the Great Lakes,” says Mark Fisher, president and CEO of CGLR.

“Circular Great Lakes is a united effort between industry, government, academia, and the non-profit sector to pursue the circular economy priorities, projects and systems changes demanded by consumers and required to achieve a future without material waste.”

The bi-national Great Lakes region is comprised of eight U.S. states and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Québec. The region is the engine of the North American economy, driving more than 50 percent of annual goods trade between the two countries and supporting some 51 million jobs, or roughly one-third of the combined American and Canadian workforce.

To learn more about this initiative and get involved as a corporate activation partner or knowledge partner, click here.