The Circularity Assessment Protocol in Cities to Reduce Plastic Pollution

The circular economy has been promoted as a solution to plastic pollution, but cities and communities bear the brunt of plastic pollution. The Circularity Assessment Protocol (CAP) is a systems method of collaborative and open data collection for communities to use for decision- and policy-making. The CAP has been utilized in 51 cities in 14 countries and is illustrated here in Metro Manila. Results include identifying manufacturing and parent companies to bring to the table; documenting most (77%) products are in single-use multi-layer film packaging; a small, but growing formal refill and reuse system; 10% of to-go food containers composed of paper-based alternatives, and a snap-shot leakage concentration of plastics to the environment that is 1.8%–2.7% of current waste generation. Community narratives emerged from a collaborative workshop and are threaded throughout opportunities identified by the CAP process to inform circularity, future actions, and policy, as a scalable way to create systems change for plastic pollution from the ground up.