Where Is the Value in the Chain? Pathways out of Plastic Pollution aims to support policy makers in their efforts to address plastic pollution. By examining the economic and financial implications of plastic management, the report provides key recommendations on how to create a comprehensive approach to addressing plastic pollution and to help policy makers make informed decisions for plastic pollution management. The report brings together new evidence from three analytical undertakings: • Tackling Plastic Pollution: Toward Experience-Based Policy Guidance-A review of existing literature and a summary of findings from the ex post analysis of the effectiveness of plastics policies in 10 countries and states and an evidence-based policy guidance aimed at policy makers and stakeholders involved in design, implementation, and evaluation of policies to manage plastic pollution. • The Plastic Substitution Tradeoff Estimator (the Estimator)-An innovative model that estimates the external costs of 10 plastic products and their alternatives along their entire life cycle, developed and piloted in five countries. The Estimator can be applied in any country to identify what substitution materials, or what combination of them, would perform best in a given scenario and to examine tradeoffs between plastics and alternatives to help establish targets for reduction and substitution. • The Plastic Policy Simulator (PPS)-A country-level, data-driven model for policy analysis to better describe the impacts of different policy instruments and policy packages on individual economic agents and on the plastic value chain at large. The PPS has been developed as a universal model and piloted in Indonesia. Its objective is to support policy makers and others in government, industry, and civil society in search of policy solutions to stem the flow of plastics by bringing an evidence-based approach to policy.
