We Designed the Plastics Crisis. Can We Design Our Way Out?
About the session
Plastic is turning up everywhere.
In food and water. In the air. In human bodies. On fragile island coastlines. In rivers carrying waste toward the ocean. In communities managing discarded materials produced by economies far beyond their borders.
None of this was inevitable.
It was designed.
Single-use plastic became embedded in supply chains, packaging, retail infrastructure, and consumer products because it was cheap, durable, and convenient. Many of the costs came later, borne by municipalities, communities, ecosystems, and future generations that had little influence over the original design decisions.
Yet much of the response still happens at the other end of the system.
Recycle more. Clean up beaches. Collect waste. Intercept plastic before it reaches the ocean.
Those interventions matter. But what if the deeper challenge is to redesign the systems that keep producing the waste in the first place?
Pieces of that redesign already exist.
Closed-loop beverage systems can make reuse part of the infrastructure rather than a behavior consumers have to consciously choose. Alternative materials made from agricultural waste can replace some plastic products while creating new manufacturing opportunities. River interception can prevent plastic already moving through waterways from reaching the ocean. Restoration efforts can help communities living with accumulated pollution. New financing mechanisms are emerging to get capital to solutions that struggle to fit conventional investment models.
The challenge is connecting these pieces.
Redesign does not eliminate the need for interception. Alternative materials do not remove the legacy waste already in ecosystems. Better collection cannot compensate indefinitely for products designed to become waste. And technical solutions cannot scale without clear answers about who owns the problem and who pays.
Meanwhile, the consequences are becoming harder to treat as an environmental issue alone. Plastic pollution connects ecosystem health, food systems, water, human health, trade, manufacturing, urban infrastructure, and economic development.
This session will ask what it would take to treat plastics as the systems challenge it actually is.
How do we design plastic out where we can, build better systems for what remains, and deal with the pollution already in circulation? How should governments, companies, cities, investors, and philanthropies divide responsibility? Which solutions are ready to scale, and what is preventing them from doing so?
And if we designed the system that created the plastics crisis, what would it take to design a different one?
Discussion Group Leaders
Arundhati Prasad is Founder, Creative Lead at Designed for Good, Zero Waste Carnic, advancing research-led and community-centered solutions at the intersection of gender, climate, and governance.
Manuela Zoninsein is CEO + Co-Founder at Kadeya, advancing circular systems that make reusable beverage packaging convenient and scalable while reducing single-use waste.
Gretchen Villegas is Chief Impact Officer & Co-Founder at 10X Impact Ventures, advancing investment and venture strategies that scale sustainable social and environmental impact.
What to expect
A practical conversation spanning different points in the plastics system: reuse and closed-loop infrastructure, alternative materials, riverine interception, ecosystem restoration, public health, governance, and finance.
Rather than positioning these approaches as competing solutions, participants will explore how they fit together and where intervention has the greatest leverage.
The conversation will focus particularly on the gap between demonstrated solutions and adoption at scale: who needs to act, what is preventing them from doing so, where responsibility currently falls through the cracks, and what kinds of capital are needed at different stages of the transition.
It will also keep the people living with plastic pollution in view. The costs of the current system are not distributed evenly, and any credible transition needs to account for who produced the waste, who profits from the existing system, and who is being asked to manage its consequences.
Who this is for
This session is for environmental and climate funders, plastics entrepreneurs and investors, public health practitioners, governments and municipalities, consumer goods companies, packaging and materials innovators, environmental advocates, and anyone who has concluded that recycling alone cannot solve the plastics crisis.
What you will get out of it
A framework for understanding plastics as a systems design challenge rather than primarily a consumer behavior problem
Ground-level experience from reuse systems, alternative materials, riverine interception, and ecosystem restoration
Perspectives on the emerging human-health dimensions of plastic pollution and the value of connecting human and ecosystem health
A clearer understanding of the governance and ownership gaps preventing promising solutions from reaching scale
Practical thinking about the financing architecture required to move from isolated plastic solutions toward a genuine systems transition