84 FORTUNE APRIL 2020ing and sorting in factories like the ones we
visited in Malaysia.
Several owners of those factories see prom-
ise in these moves—a glimmer of hope that
their nurdles might finally become desirable
commodities again. “Nike and Adidas want
to tell customers they care about the earth
and will use 100% recycled plastics,” says Adu
Wu, chief operating officer for Grey Matter
Industries, a Taiwanese recycler. The recent
announcements might signal a turning point,
he says. “We want to be part of that.”
Back at BioGreen Frontier, company
director Engboon Ooi, 56, says he too hopes
changing behavior among multinationals
could help him land big deals. In the mean-
time, he’s preoccupied with short-term woes.
Ooi is still waiting for official permits for
his factory and risks being shut down. And
in late January, BioGreen and other recy-
clers, like much of the global economy, were
hit with a body blow from the coronavirus.
Within weeks, China shut down factories
and ports and canceled orders for recycled-
plastic pellets, causing havoc for recyclers. By
phone in mid-February, Ooi told me he has
begun stockpiling nurdles in the warehouse,
while hunting for other clients. “I don’t want
to send the workers home,” he says.
Those workers continue to flood into
Malaysia from some of the world’s poorest
countries, eager to recycle the waste from
some of its richest. For them, the plastic-
waste industry, even in its depressed state,
remains a large step up the economic ladder.
“I have worked here for two months,” says
Aung Aung, 25, from Yangon, Myanmar, as he
stands on the BioGreen production line. He
says recycling plastic pays far more than his
previous restaurant jobs in Penang. “I need to
think about my family,” he says.
Shahid Ali, meanwhile, has big plans. He
says he will work at BioGreen for two more
years before returning to Peshawar. “I will get
married then,” he says, standing amid the sod-
den washed plastic. “I have already chosen a
girl.” Until then, he’s willing to spend 84 hours
a week on the recycling line—building a home,
figuratively speaking, out of plastic scraps.With additional reporting by Selvanaban
Mariappen and Sebastian MeyerPUSHING BACK ON PLASTIC3PAY-PER-PACKAGE
One way to counteract a broken recycling market:
require companies to pay city governments to recy-
cle their plastic packaging. In most of the European
Union and some Asian countries, such laws already
exist. In the U.S., Maine’s legislature is considering a
similar bill. Plastic makers say they would prefer to
boost recycling rates rather than shoulder the costs.
But in Europe, the laws have helped spur companies
to cut packaging and rethink their use of plastic.2BIOPLASTICS
Unlike traditional plastic, which is made from petro-
leum feedstocks, bioplastics are produced by extract-
ing sugar from corn or sugarcane and turning it into
polylactic acids or polyhydroxyalkanoates. Those
materials look and feel much like carbon-based plas-
tics, without the fossil fuel consumption. Critics note
that crops for bioplastics require pesticides and hog
land on which food could be grown. And recycling
bioplastics requires high heat in composting plants,
increasing the risk that used items will be landfilled.1CHEMICAL RECYCLING
The plastics industry is bullish on this strategy to ad-
dress the global glut. The method involves breaking
down plastics that are typically landfilled or burned,
like plastic wrappers, film, and coffee pods, into their
raw chemical ingredients. Those are then mingled
with virgin resins to make materials that are just as
strong as new plastic. There are downsides, however.
The process generates a substantial carbon footprint,
for example, limiting its overall benefit to the climate.Our appetite for plastic is almost limitless; the planet’s ability
to absorb it is not. Barely 9% of used plastics are recycled
worldwide, and about 8 million tons are dumped into the
oceans every year. A growing wave of popular anger over plas-
tic waste is pushing companies to take bolder steps to tackle
the problem. These three approaches are gaining momentum.A PLANET IN CRISIS : THE PLASTIC FLOODKAROL SEREWIS—SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET/GETTY IMAGESPLA.W.0420.XMIT.indd 84 FINAL 3/10/2020 4:00:22 PM