Held on September 3–4, 2026, at PACIFICO Yokohama North, the Asia-Pacific Circular Cities Forum (APCC-Forum) brought together founding cities of the ACCD (Asian Circular Cities Declaration) on its second day for a session titled “Plastic Pollution and Local Governments,” examining how the international community, national governments, and frontline cities are confronting the worsening crisis of marine plastic pollution and waste.
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) is currently working to develop a legally binding international plastics treaty, but the path to consensus has been far from smooth. Against this backdrop, the session explored how cities are working to achieve plastic circularity in practice.
The session opened with an overview of the latest developments in the international treaty negotiations by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), followed by presentations from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and cities across the Asia-Pacific region, who shared practical insights into building systems for plastic circularity. Lively debate ensued on how to bridge the gap between legislation and on-the-ground implementation.
Where International Negotiations Stand: The Future of the Plastics Treaty and Its Implications for Cities
The session opened with a presentation by Mr. Ono of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), who outlined the current state of plastics treaty negotiations under the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), which has been ongoing since the fifth session of the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA 5.2).
Mr. Ono: “Plastic pollution is a global challenge that no single country can solve alone. However, negotiations toward a treaty agreement have been extended, and the next INC meeting is scheduled for March 2027. Even if a treaty is agreed upon, it will take several more years to reach implementation, given the diplomatic conference, ratification processes, and preparations for the first Conference of the Parties (COP1).”
Mr. Ono cited the treaty’s potential benefits as “harmonizing fragmented national regulations to create a level playing field for global companies” and “accelerating the transition to a circular economy spanning production through consumption.” At the same time, he pointed to challenges such as how to incorporate production and consumption reduction into the treaty text, and how to bridge the differing starting points of individual countries.
He also noted that plastic pollution continues unabated even as treaty finalization is delayed. Stressing that pollution worsens daily while agreement and entry into force remain years away, Mr. Ono made a strong case for the leading role of local governments, stating: “Proactive and accelerated action by cities is critical, and concrete practices from the field give national governments greater confidence to negotiate and ratify.”
The Need for a Global Framework and a “Common Language”
Next to take the floor was Sarah O’Carroll of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, who spoke about international trends specific to the plastics issue and how businesses and cities can work together.
Following the Foundation’s 2016 projection that “by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish,” it launched the Global Commitment together with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in 2018. Signatory companies account for approximately 20% of the global plastic packaging market, and since 2018 the initiative has achieved results including avoiding the use of approximately 14 million tonnes of virgin plastic, tripling recycled content, and eliminating 775,000 tonnes of problematic packaging from the market.
However, O’Carroll cautioned that individual initiatives and voluntary targets alone have their limits.
O’Carroll: “If voluntary shared goals and commitments have been able to achieve this much, legally binding global obligations could take us even further. Fragmented regulations that depend on country-by-country approaches only disadvantage companies that move first and add complexity to global supply chains.”
The Foundation is calling for legally binding, globally harmonized requirements across four areas: minimizing plastic use, reusing packaging, improving recycling, and expanding the use of recycled materials. O’Carroll also introduced reuse infrastructure pilot projects in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Recife, Brazil, and emphasized that an integrated approach involving business, policy, and cities is essential to address the structural challenge that difficult-to-manage plastics—such as flexible packaging sachets—account for 80% of ocean plastic inflows.
Tokyo’s “Carbon Closed Cycle” Challenge and Reuse in the Office District
Presenting as an advanced example of local government action, Ms. Iwasaki of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government shared the specific challenges and initiatives the city faces.
Tokyo has adopted a “carbon closed cycle” approach to plastic circularity as part of its goal of achieving net zero by 2050. Looking toward 2030, the city has set a target of reducing the amount of plastic incinerated from households and large office buildings by 40% compared to fiscal year 2017 levels (from approximately 700,000 tonnes to approximately 400,000 tonnes), and has been working toward this goal.
1. Supporting Household Waste Sorting
Among Tokyo’s 62 municipalities, the number implementing separate plastic collection has expanded from 34 in 2019 to 48 in 2026 (※). As sorting advances even in central urban areas, the city has also partnered with private companies to expand a collection and recycling scheme for large plastic waste items—such as the approximately 600,000 polypropylene storage cases discarded annually—from 5 to 20 municipalities.
※ Data covers 53 municipalities, excluding 9 island municipalities.
2. The Barriers to Reuse in Office Districts
In Tokyo, where large buildings are densely concentrated, introducing reuse systems in offices (such as reusable cups) is important, but the hurdles remain high: building the necessary infrastructure (networks for washing, transport, and collection) to compete with the low cost and convenience of disposables, and driving behavioral change among users.
3. The Reality of Stagnant Incineration Volumes
Tokyo as a whole generates approximately one million tonnes of plastic waste per year, of which approximately 700,000 tonnes are still incinerated. Ms. Iwasaki noted: “Over the past six years, we have expanded recycling systems and support, but the actual volume being incinerated has not decreased significantly. To bring about fundamental change, it is essential to strengthen collection systems for plastics mixed into combustible waste and to reinforce regulations and infrastructure for large office buildings.”
Having laid out the current state of the city’s efforts, Ms. Iwasaki also spoke about her hopes for international cooperation, reflecting on the value of the APCC as a platform for sharing practice:
Ms. Iwasaki: “To be honest, I call my counterparts at the City of Yokohama almost every week to ask about their advanced policies and how they are being implemented. We can learn from each other through phone calls and online meetings, and when we can gather in person like today, it should be tremendously valuable for mutual learning.”
Candid Voices from the Field on Plastics, and Hopes for a Treaty
The latter half of the session featured an open discussion with a diverse range of local governments from the ACCD (Asian Circular Cities Declaration) founding cities, who shared their on-the-ground struggles and expectations for an international framework.
A speaker from South Korea shared the country’s thorough waste-sorting practices, underpinned by the nationwide pay-as-you-waste system introduced in 1995. At the same time, challenges specific to local conditions were also reported—for example, Jeju Island faces a lack of industrial infrastructure for on-island reuse and resource recovery. Chungcheongnam-do (South Chungcheong Province) introduced approaches to encourage behavioral change among residents and businesses, including an ordinance banning single-use items in public buildings and an incentive scheme in which the local government subsidizes part of the cost for customers who use reusable containers at cafés.
Mandaue City in Cebu Province, the Philippines, described a situation in which a large number of plastic manufacturing and packaging companies are concentrated within a small, extremely densely populated urban area. While the city has advanced measures such as banning plastic bags through its own ordinances, the high cost of alternatives and the time required to build community understanding remain obstacles. The Philippines is characterized by what is known as a “sachet economy,” in which shampoo, condiments, and other products are packaged and consumed in large quantities in small single-use plastic sachets. The speaker made a pointed observation: “No matter how hard local governments work on ordinances and sorting, the impact will be limited unless producers change upstream.”
Del Carmen, a tourist destination and island municipality in the same country, described the reality of waste infrastructure failing to keep pace with a rapid surge in tourist numbers, leaving the city unable to transport waste off the island. The speaker also drew on the experience of being forced to rely on single-use plastics during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the aftermath of the major typhoon in 2021, calling for plastic policies that also account for disaster response.
For her part, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s O’Carroll pointed out: “Even if a city builds the world’s best sorting infrastructure, it will ultimately continue dealing with the consequences of packaging and design decisions made somewhere else.” This highlighted the importance of aligning upstream product design with infrastructure planning—so that circular infrastructure is not only adapted to existing product designs, but that products themselves are designed to circulate sustainably.
Mr. Uchida of ICLEI Japan summarized: “Each city is doing everything within its authority, but without transformation in upstream production and design, no fundamental solution will be reached. We need to amplify the voices connecting international frameworks, national governments, and city-level realities—and we must do so more forcefully through the ACCD (Asian Circular Cities Declaration) network.”
Can Cities Serve as the Stage to Bring Material Flows Together?
What this session made clear is that, in the face of the global challenge of plastic circularity, cities on the ground are already paying the cost of searching for ways to “close the loop” on materials—while the existing economic infrastructure does not always fully support circularity.
No matter how much local governments strengthen sorting, collection, and regulation through their own ordinances, they cannot prevent the inflow of non-recyclable materials unless they can directly intervene in the upstream processes of product design and manufacturing. This upstream barrier points to a structural limitation that downstream administrative efforts alone cannot overcome.
As agreement on a legally binding international plastics treaty continues to be delayed, what should cities and local governments do next? Rather than simply waiting for an international framework to be agreed upon, demonstrating empirical data and concrete success models from the city level is the key to breaking the current deadlock. As both Mr. Ono and O’Carroll noted, the proactive practices of individual cities and collaboration between them provide a solid foundation for other cities to take their next steps.
The transition to a circular economy advances only when cities serve as the stage for genuine collaboration among government, industry, and academia. How the knowledge from the field and innovation from industry can be made to work in concert is the practical question that demands urgent attention now.
【Reference】Asia-Pacific Circular Cities Forum 2026 (APCC-Forum 2026)
【Reference Article】Asia-Pacific Tackles Plastic Pollution: The Future of an International Treaty and Practical Insights from Cities and Local Governments [APCC2026 Report] | Circular Economy Hub
【Related Article】A Circular Economy Starting from Cities: Asia-Pacific Takes Its First Steps from Declaration to Action [APCC2026 Report]
【Related Article】Asian Circular Cities Declaration Expands to 43 Cities; APCC Forum Held for the First Time in Yokohama
※ This article is reprinted from Circular Economy Hub, operated by Article Co., Ltd.
