Photo Credit: Circularity Informatics Lab
Preventing plastic pollution is a complex challenge that requires action at every stage. Each entity plays an important role in understanding the sources of plastic pollution and identifying effective strategies to prevent plastic pollution from production through plastics reaching the environment and our ocean.
The Circularity Assessment Protocol (CAP) is a powerful tool designed to gather data on a city's circularity, providing critical insights for local, regional, national, and global decision-makers. This information can help with upstream actions, from input of materials into a community to what is found on the ground, that promote circularity. The CAP was developed by the Circularity Informatics Lab (CIL) at the University of Georgia, part of the Jambeck Research Group, and founded by Dr. Jenna Jambeck, CIRT co-founder, 2024 SEC Professor of the Year, and a 2022 MacArthur Fellow.
CAP assessments have been conducted in 56 cities and 16 countries worldwide, in partnership with organizations like Urban Ocean (a partnership of The Circulate Initiative, the Resilient Cities Network, and the Ocean Conservancy), the World Bank, USAID, USEPA, the National Science Foundation, Perpetual, and eXXpedition. These assessments help identify opportunities in each community, which then communities determine what will work best for them in their context to optimize circularity.
In the US, the CAP is being implemented through a National Science Foundation award from the Convergence Accelerator called SpheriCity. In Vietnam, the CAP was conducted in Hanoi and Nam Dinh with local partner Centre for Marine Life Conservation and Community Development (MCD) in collaboration with Ocean Conservancy. Urban Ocean implemented the CAP in cities across India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Panama, Brazil, Argentina, Thailand, and Chile.
A key tool used within the CAP is the Debris Tracker, an open data platform developed by Dr. Jambeck and Dr. Kyle Johnsen from UGA. It allows anyone to contribute location-specific plastic pollution data while also allowing anyone to access that data around the world, seeing what data might be available in their communities. Open data is a cornerstone of the CAP process, as it empowers communities with accurate information that can drive impactful decision-making. Engaging with local people is vital, as their firsthand community knowledge is of critical importance when making local decisions. Optimizing circularity is highly dependent on the specific conditions of each location. By collaboratively collecting holistic data in a community from input, to product design, to use/reuse, to materials management, and to leakage the CAP can bring people together, spark discussion and catalyze change.
“Cities and communities bear the burden of materials management and we believe creating their own circularity is their right. Utilizing the CAP framework, we propose that together we can create a global, just and equitable transformation to circularity and eliminate plastic pollution, from the ground up.” - Dr. Jenna Jambeck
Dr. Jambeck is a co-founder of CIRT, a (Software as a Service) SaaS platform that allows companies to measure waste reduction efforts. This platform offers robust packaging materials management and analytics capabilities, allowing companies to track recycling efforts, and waste reduction by providing comprehensive reports for better decision-making and benchmarking performance against industry standards and regulations. Learn more about CIRT’s mission: https://www.cirt.tech/mission
