Quick Summary
• The Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW) has removed only 119,000 metric tons of plastic since 2019, while its member companies produced 132 million metric tons during the same period.
• AEPW abandoned its initial goal of removing 15 million metric tons of plastic, calling it “too ambitious.”
• Critics accuse AEPW of greenwashing, prioritizing PR over meaningful environmental impact, with less than a quarter of its pledged $1.5 billion invested.
• Member companies, including ExxonMobil and Shell, have expanded plastic production by 20%, seeing plastics as a growth market amid declining fossil fuel demand.
• Environmental advocates argue reducing plastic production and addressing toxic chemicals are essential to combating plastic pollution effectively.
• The alliance has been lobbying against measures to limit plastic production during global treaty negotiations in South Korea.
A coalition of major corporations formed to address plastic pollution, the Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW), has come under fire after a Greenpeace Unearthed investigation revealed the organization has produced over 1,000 times more plastic than it has removed from the environment since its inception in 2019. The alliance’s shortcomings have raised serious questions about its effectiveness and accusations of greenwashing amid the ongoing global plastics treaty negotiations in South Korea.
Launched with a promise to invest $1.5 billion in addressing plastic waste, AEPW initially set a goal to remove 15 million metric tons of waste from the environment by the end of 2023. However, the alliance abandoned that target last year, calling it “too ambitious.” To date, the group has removed just 119,000 metric tons of plastic waste while its key member companies, including ExxonMobil, Shell, and Dow, produced 132 million metric tons of plastic between 2019 and 2023. According to consultancy firm Wood Mackenzie, these five companies alone manufacture more plastic every two days than the alliance has removed in five years.
The AEPW was formed in 2019 by members of the American Chemistry Council (ACC), a trade group representing some of the world’s largest oil and chemical companies, alongside a public relations agency. The initiative was conceived as a response to growing public concern over plastic pollution, amplified by documentaries like Blue Planet II, which featured harrowing images of marine life entangled in plastic waste. The alliance was promoted as “the most comprehensive effort to date to end plastic waste in the environment,” with a focus on cleaning up rivers in Africa and Asia, which were identified as the primary sources of oceanic plastic pollution.
Documents obtained by Unearthed suggest the initiative was designed to shift the public narrative away from bans and regulations on plastic use. A campaign brief from the PR firm Weber Shandwick stated the goal was to “change the conversation – away from short-term simplistic bans of plastic to real, long-term solutions.”
Despite its lofty promises, AEPW has fallen far short of its original goals. By 2023, the group had invested only $375 million—less than a quarter of its pledged $1.5 billion. A significant portion of these funds has gone toward communications consulting rather than waste removal efforts. The alliance’s most notable projects, such as a waste management initiative in Bali, Indonesia, have struggled with financial instability, broken equipment, and unmanageable volumes of waste.
Critics argue that AEPW’s efforts are not designed to meaningfully address the plastic crisis. “The recycling schemes they’re promoting can barely make a dent in all the plastic these companies are pumping out,” said Will McCallum, co-executive director of Greenpeace UK. “They’re letting the running tap flood the house while trying to scoop up the water with a teaspoon.”
Meanwhile, plastic production by AEPW’s member companies has surged. The alliance’s five leading members have collectively expanded their plastic manufacturing capacity by 20% since 2019, with projects such as Shell’s $14 billion polyethylene facility in Pennsylvania. Petrochemical production is now a key growth area for the oil and gas industry as demand for fossil fuels declines. Research by the OECD predicts that global plastic production will triple by 2060 if current trends continue, further exacerbating the environmental crisis.
The production process for plastics is also highly energy-intensive, generating significant greenhouse gas emissions. A 2019 study by the OECD found that plastic production accounted for 1.8 gigatons of emissions, a figure that could more than double by 2060.
The Unearthed investigation comes as world leaders meet in Busan, South Korea, to negotiate the UN Global Plastics Treaty, which has been described as a potential turning point in the fight against plastic pollution. However, industry groups, including the ACC and AEPW, have been lobbying against measures to limit plastic production and regulate toxic chemicals. Instead, these organizations have pushed for voluntary industry agreements and a focus on waste management.
“The issue is pollution. The issue is not plastic,” said ExxonMobil’s head of plastics during a recent round of treaty talks. This perspective has drawn criticism from environmental groups, which argue that the root cause of the crisis is the unchecked production of disposable plastics. “Plastic pollution is not simply a waste issue,” said Ellen Palm, a researcher at Roskilde University. “To address it effectively, policy interventions across the full life cycle of plastics are essential.”
Environmental advocates have labeled AEPW’s efforts as a textbook example of greenwashing. Duncan Meisel, executive director of Clean Creatives, described the alliance as an attempt to obscure the harmful practices of its member companies. “These companies are not investing in actually reducing plastic, in redesigning their supply chains, in real upstream solutions,” said Tiza Mafira, co-founder of Indonesia’s Plastic Diet Movement.
Despite the criticism, AEPW maintains that its projects are innovative and aimed at testing scalable solutions. “As with any portfolio, we recognize projects may not work perfectly or achieve the same level of success,” a spokesperson for the alliance said.
Environmentalists and policymakers alike argue that tackling the plastic crisis requires systemic change, not incremental cleanup efforts. Addressing the issue at its source—by reducing production and rethinking supply chains—is widely seen as essential to curbing the growing environmental and public health impacts of plastic pollution.
“To fix this planetary health crisis, we need to address the underlying problems of hazardous chemical inputs in plastic manufacturing and the unbridled production of disposable plastics,” said Aileen Lucero of the EcoWaste Coalition.
COMMENTS