Each year, an estimated 12 million metric tons of plastic waste enters the ocean. Without intervention, that number is expected to rise to 29 million metric tons annually by 2040—equivalent to roughly 50 kilograms of plastic per meter of coastline worldwide. Plastic pollution affects not only marine ecosystems, but also human health and local economies, as microplastics increasingly appear in food systems and even our bodies.
Launched in 2024, the CIRCLE Alliance was a multi-stakeholder partnership founded by Unilever, USAID, and EY, and implemented by Resonance, with the goal reducing plastic use and addressing plastic pollution in rapidly growing economies. CIRCLE was closed following the shutdown of USAID in 2025, yet it remains an important example of how public, private, and civil society actors can work together to address complex environmental and social challenges. It also offers valuable lessons for what future efforts to address plastic pollution could look like.
A Focus on Circular Innovation in Plastic Hotspots
CIRCLE launched its work in India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam—countries where rapid urbanization, rising consumption, and insufficient waste management infrastructure have made plastic pollution particularly acute. At the same time, governments across South and Southeast Asia have begun implementing policies aimed at reducing plastic waste and promoting extended producer responsibility (EPR), creating an enabling (though still evolving) policy environment for circular solutions.
The Alliance was designed to support entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized businesses building circular economy solutions—systems that eliminate waste through continual use of resources, in contrast to linear, disposable models.
These included:
- Enterprises recovering plastic waste from the environment and preventing it from entering landfills or waterways
- Innovators pioneering refill and reuse models that reduce demand for virgin plastic
- Recycling businesses working to improve the quality and usability of post-consumer recycled materials
In just this first round of enterprise grant-making and business support, CIRCLE-backed enterprises rapidly expanded reuse and collection infrastructure, establishing more than 600 refill and collection stations in Indonesia. This network enabled widespread participation in more sustainable consumption models, strengthened local waste collection systems, and avoided over 4 metric tons of plastic waste.
Investments in waste aggregation and sorting improved the efficiency and reliability of material recovery. By strengthening partnerships with waste banks, materials recovery facilities, and small aggregators, supported enterprises increased revenues, achieved profitability, and reinforced supplier networks—showing how inclusive, well-coordinated value chains can create shared economic value while improving plastics recovery.
CIRCLE also supported breakthrough innovation in hard-to-recycle materials. One enterprise in India successfully scaled from lab-level experimentation to a pilot demonstration facility capable of processing hundreds of kilograms per day, proving the technical feasibility of converting multi-layer plastic sachets—often considered unrecyclable—into high-quality packaging. This included the production of a fully functional shampoo bottle made entirely from recycled multilayer plastic.
Across these efforts, CIRCLE demonstrated that when entrepreneurs are paired with the right mix of capital, technical support, and corporate engagement, it is possible to achieve early commercial traction while delivering tangible reductions in plastic waste.
Lessons Learned
CIRCLE’s early experience surfaced three core lessons about what it takes to advance circular solutions to plastic pollution.
First, committed corporate partners offer far more than funding.
While grant capital played an important catalytic role, the most powerful contribution from corporate partners was their ability to bring supply chains, technical expertise, business mentoring, and market connections. Access to real buyers and operational know-how is critical for sustainability; it enables promising enterprises to move beyond pilots and become viable, long-term businesses.
Second, local regulatory frameworks—particularly extended producer responsibility (EPR)—are a meaningful catalyst for change.
In markets where governments are beginning to implement policies aimed at reducing plastic waste and promoting circularity, initiatives like CIRCLE can reinforce and accelerate momentum. When public policy and private-sector engagement push in the same direction, entrepreneurs are better positioned to invest, innovate, and scale.
Third, innovation in plastics is widespread and highly context-specific.
No single business model will solve the plastic pollution challenge. Across geographies, diverse enterprises are emerging to address different parts of the value chain—from collection and aggregation to recycling, refill, and reuse. When this diffuse innovation is paired with business mentoring, committed corporate partners with a local presence and supply chains to plug into, and targeted funding, it can meaningfully strengthen the broader ecosystem.
What a Future Initiative Could Look Like
While the CIRCLE Alliance has ended, the approach it tested remains highly relevant. By combining business mentoring, catalytic funding, and access to corporate supply chains—within markets facing acute plastic challenges and supported by emerging regulatory frameworks—the Alliance demonstrated how small and medium-sized enterprises can be positioned to drive meaningful change.
With the right mix of partners and funding, future initiatives can build on these lessons to move from isolated innovations toward more integrated, circular solutions to plastic pollution. Importantly, because CIRCLE worked through market-based businesses and engaged deeply with committed corporate partners, many of the benefits of the program will be sustained beyond the life of the funding itself.
A future initiative could go further by focusing on a targeted geography and intentionally working to build a more fully functioning plastics ecosystem. While the innovative business models that exist today are essential, on their own they can only go so far. At the scale of a municipality or region, it becomes possible to align actors across the value chain—entrepreneurs, waste workers, local government, regulators, and corporate off-takers—using a similar model to coordinate investment, policy, and market demand.
By pulling these elements together within a defined local context, a next-generation effort could move beyond supporting individual enterprises to strengthening the system as a whole, creating durable infrastructure and incentives that meaning fully reduce plastic pollution.
