Raising Awareness of Plastic Waste  

By Bettina Wassener

HONG KONG — Most people are familiar with the concept of a carbon footprint. Many may also know there is such a thing as a water footprint. But whoever heard of a plastic footprint? Well, soon, more and more people will have. Starting in early October, hundreds of companies and institutions around the world will receive a questionnaire asking them to assess and report their use of plastic: how much they use, what processes they have for recycling and what — if any — policies they have to reduce their plastic consumption or to increase the proportion of recycled or biodegradable plastic within…

What is PDP?

The Plastic Disclosure Project (PDP) is working to reduce the environmental impact of the world's rising use of plastics in products and packaging. 

Plastics have many benefits including their durability, cheapness and light weight, but these benefits can cause problems for the environment.  Most plastics do not biodegrade and instead remain in the environment for decades, even centuries.  Plastic's cheapness encourages its ever greater use in single-use packaging, and discourages recycling.  Plastic's lightness means that it floats, rather than sinking to the bottom.

Millions of tons of durable, light-weight plastic waste are ending up in our landfills, countrysides, rivers and oceans, where it remains for decades, perhaps breaking up into ever-smaller pieces but not going away.  Smaller plastic pieces are eaten by birds and fish, potentially entering our food chain.

PDP is an investor-supported global initiative to encourage the world's major corporate users of plastics to measure their plastic footprint, and develop innovative strategies to reduce the environmental impact.

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