Sometimes the most productive movements to effect social change start at the grassroots level and permeate upwards. That certainly is the plan of the parties driving the creation of a university student competition that aims to identify and scale solutions to help address the plastics waste problem—initially in India and across Asia, but potentially, they hope, on a global scale.
Rob Steir, an environmental entrepreneur based in Delray Beach, Fla., is one of the forces behind the initiative, along with Doug Woodring, an American based in Hong Kong who is founder and managing director of the nonprofit Ocean Recovery Alliance, a non-government organization (NGO) dedicated to helping save the planet’s oceans and waterways. (For an analysis by Woodring of how global oil prices affect demand for recycled resins, see February Plastics Engineering, p. 39.)
Steir is also co-founder and partner of Frontline Waste Holding LLC, a small waste-to-energy company focused on islands and developing countries and serves as a principal in a group he co-founded called CAPP. the Commitments Accelerator for Plastic Pollution (https://capp.global).
CAPP launched in January 2020 and operates under the auspices of Woodring’s Ocean Recovery Alliance. The creation of CAPP was spurred by a 98-page report published in early 2020 that was funded by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). The report, for which Steir was the main author, was titled “Crafting High-Impact Voluntary Commitments to Prevent or Reduce Marine Litter”.
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