Tackling soft plastic waste in the Pacific
6 May 2025
Project Summary
The Circular Pacific Plastics (CPP) project is part of ANZPAC’s commitment to support brand owners in finding solutions in collaboration with Pacific communities to tackle plastic waste. By piloting new plastic recovery initiatives and setting a pathway towards Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), CPP works to address the lack of recycling infrastructure across the Pacific. The project brings together brands, local experts, and technical partners to deliver tailored end-of-life solutions for plastic packaging.
CPP’s three-phase approach includes:
STAGE 1
Voluntary soft plastics recovery pilot to build a business case for EPR.
STAGE 2
Designing a voluntary national EPR scheme.
STAGE 3
Expanding to a regionally regulated EPR across Pacific Island Countries.
Stage 1 started in Fiji as a collaborative effort from the Pacific Recycling Foundation (PRF), Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), Nestlé, and Colgate-Palmolive with funding from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to pilot soft plastics recovery.
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The Challenge
Fiji, like many Pacific Island nations, is disproportionately impacted by plastic pollution due to import dependence, limited recycling systems, small waste volumes, and remote geography. Only 0.2% of soft plastics are recovered and most of the remaining material exits a circular economy. With 6,500 tonnes of soft plastic packaging placed on the market annually in Fiji, locally relevant and cost-effective solutions are needed to tackle this growing issue.
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Collaborative solution finding
Stage 1 brought together ANZPAC, PRF, WRAP, Nestlé, and Colgate-Palmolive to design and deliver two pilot soft plastic recovery schemes in both B2B and B2C settings. These efforts explored cost effective collection and recycling pathways, infrastructure and technology needs, soft plastic sources and analysis of frameworks for a voluntary EPR system with engagement from industry and government stakeholders.
The project delivered several undertakings, including:
- B2B and B2C soft plastics recovery pilots
- Behaviour change trainings
- Brand waste audits to identify sources of pollution
- A small-scale technology analysis
- A cost-benefit analysis
These undertakings allowed for a holistic approach to, and understanding of, the challenge at hand.
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The impact
CPP demonstrated the value of collaborative, community-informed approaches to waste management and how they can create scalable solutions to lay the foundation for long-term systems change. The pilot generated strong local engagement and proves that, with the right investment, this model can reduce pollution, empower communities, and drive circular economy outcomes across the Pacific region.
Over the course of 6-months, pilot outcomes included:
Engagement of the informal waste sector (a.k.a. Collection Pillars of Recycling)
Establishment of collection processes and systems ready to be scaled
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Learnings
Initiatives such as CPP in Fiji, driven by local knowledge holders and supported by global brands and industry experts, can transform waste management practices, reduce plastic waste, and contribute to the development of a sustainable, circular economy in remote geographies like the Pacific Island region.
- The B2C pilot indicated growing community willingness to engage in collection initiatives and therefore highlighted the need for improved community education to increase volume and lower contamination levels.
- B2B pilot underscored the value of consistent business engagement to increase at source segregation and collect higher volumes of clear materials.
- Clear polyethylene from B2B is suitable for export, while mixed B2C materials are better suited for small-scale processing solutions in country.
- Government engagement in Fiji highlights that the political landscape is shifting and strong support for EPR initiatives is growing.
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Recommendations
Future efforts should:
- Develop an expansion strategy to grow the recovery in Fiji and scale to other Pacific Island Countries to accelerate the move towards EPR across the region.
- Test small-scale technologies to process mixed plastics from B2C sources.
- Collaborate with governments designing and implementing EPR schemes across the Pacific to align and improve outcomes of parallel initiatives.
- Develop a business case to secure funding for a viable long-term implementation.