KUALA LUMPUR: More than 75 per cent of the material value of plastics worth US$6 billion is lost per year across Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, according to the World Bank.
A series of studies by the bank revealed the three countries had less than a quarter of plastics available for recycling into valuable materials.
The studies examined the untapped economic opportunities to promote plastic circularity and address marine debris in Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.
The World Bank said a significant untapped business opportunity can be addressed when single-use plastics were discarded rather than recovered and recycled.
The World Bank country director for Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, Ndiamé Diop said mismanaged plastic waste across Malaysia, the Philippine and Thailand was threatening key economic sectors such as tourism and fisheries, and impacting livelihoods and infrastructure.
"But there is strong government momentum in these countries to identify critical policies, and craft roadmaps to strengthen demand for all recycled plastic resins, level the playing field for global and domestic companies, and help drive a circular economy for plastics," he said in a statement today.
Diop said these studies showed that there was an untapped opportunity to reap environmental and economic benefits with clear and complementary interventions from the private and public sector.
Using a plastic value chain approach, the studies evaluated the plastics recycling industry and its role in supporting a circular economy and scaling up recycling efforts via targeted public and private sector interventions.
The studies presented the size and scale of each country's plastics production and recycling industry, focusing on four key recyclable resins.
The researchers consulted with resin manufacturers, brand owners, converters, aggregators, and recyclers across the plastic value chain to compile and develop baseline data for each targeted resin.
They also undertook analyses to quantify the untapped market potential for each resin and identified the pressures that contribute to material value loss in each country.
While the studies found that barriers to plastic recycling were unique to each country, there were common actions that governments and industries could take to help Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand unlock additional material value.
Recommendations include increase sorting efficiency of post-consumer collection of plastics, set recycled content targets across all major end-use applications, mandate "design for recycling" standards for plastics, especially for packaging and encourage increase in recycling capacities (mechanical and chemical).
It also suggested that the three countries to implement industry-specific requirements to increase waste collection rates, restrict disposal of waste plastics in landfills and phase-out non-essential plastic items.
International Finance Corp Asia Pacific Regional industry director (manufacturing, agribusiness and services) Rana Karadsheh said these studies served a critical need for country-specific data on how plastics are produced, used and managed in Southeast Asia.
"They clearly highlight the importance of managing plastic waste as a valuable resource, and not solely as a waste management problem," she said.