This Global Environment Facility-funded project developed by UNEP aims to reduce marine plastics and plastic pollution in the Latin America and the Caribbean region by facilitating circular actions at the city level to accelerate the transition to a circular economy, in line with government and business commitments on addressing marine plastics and plastic pollution. The project was approved by GEF in May 2022.

Goals and Impact:

The project will:

1. Support city governments and authorities to set up regulatory frameworks and testing key policy instruments to provide enabling conditions for developing a more circular plastic economy;
2. Stimulate the development of circular design on products, service, business models including reuse, and collection and recycling systems, with cooperation among relevant businesses along the value chain;
3. Set up an inter-city network to align regional strategy and actions to stimulate cities to cooperate at the regional level;
4. Develop various knowledge products, capacity-building activities, and monitoring schemes, to enable governments, businesses, and other stakeholders to adopt best practices for wider replication in more cities in LAC.