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Tackling Plastic Waste: GPCA's Bold Initiative | |
| Sumita Pawar |
The Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA) Plastics Conference will focus on an effective strategic response to handling plastic waste and preventing over $120 billion from being lost annually.
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Despite being recognised as a crucial issue, only 5–7% of plastics are recycled due to the diversity and variability of plastic waste, contamination, gaps in the existing infrastructure, and the new demands of advanced recycling.
The conference will consider establishing a recycling industry in the region that can help support job creation, with estimates suggesting a 10,000 tpa mechanical recycling plant can create between 27 and 32 direct jobs and many more jobs throughout the value chain.
The conference will be held under the theme ‘Investing in New Value Creation: A Sustainable Transformation’ to address some of the most pertinent questions facing the polymer value chain in the Arabian Gulf region and beyond.
The conference will host the CIRCUL-A-THON challenge launched by Sabic and Plug and Play earlier this year to engage with creative and visionary designers in the quest to find solutions facing the future of circularity.
The challenge focuses on industrial designs for real-life products with ease of reuse and recyclability of plastics throughout their life cycles.