Hanoi, 24 September 2025: Research on plastic pollution in Southeast Asia is advancing rapidly, with solutions increasingly tailored to local socioeconomic conditions. However, during discussions for the international legally binding instrument for plastic pollution or INC, it became apparent that scientific advancements and countermeasures coming from Southeast Asia remain underrepresented.
For this reason, ERIA and the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) have initiated the development of a book that gathers the latest scientific information from the region, putting ASEAN+3 research out to the world and promoting cross-country knowledge exchange. Produced in collaboration with 37 experts and practitioners, the forthcoming ASEAN Plastic Book comprises 22 chapters that extensively cover the current state of plastic pollution research, alongside detailed country reports.
On 24 September 2025, the book’s authors gathered in Hanoi to review the content, share feedback, and discuss dissemination efforts following the book’s publication.
Mr Reo Kawamura, Director for Environmental Policy and the Regional Knowledge Centre for Marine Plastic Debris at ERIA, opened the meeting by welcoming the authors from across the region. As lead editor, Mr Kawamura acknowledged the authors’ commendable contributions to making research from ASEAN more accessible to the international community.
Discussions were divided into five sessions, each dedicated to a specific part of the book. The first part focuses on the outlook of plastic pollution, encompassing various topics such as the ecological and human health impacts of plastic pollution.
‘It’s worth noting that there are at least 50 plastic leakage reports from academics and citizen science across the Philippines, but in local languages,’ said Ms Melissa Cardenas, Executive Director at Environweave Integrative Environmental Research, who encouraged incorporating such work to enrich Chapter 3 on the ecological impacts of plastic pollution.
In addition to impacts, Part I of the book also covers countermeasures, including behavioural change interventions; extended producer responsibility; plastics leakage prevention; plastic pollution from agriculture, fishery, and wastewater; and regional and global initiatives towards an international convention on plastic pollution.
‘It’s interesting to know that there are many regional initiatives in ASEAN that overlap. This prompts us to think about the need for collaboration for more meaningful progress,’ noted Dr Nirmala Menikpura, Senior Fellow at IGES, during the discussion on Chapter 10 on global and regional initiatives.
The second part of the book concentrates on plastic waste management data, policy, and practices from ASEAN+3 countries.
Every country chapter comprehensively elaborates the policy landscape of plastic waste management, highlighting its importance as the legal basis for countermeasures.
Challenges in data collection emerged as a recurring theme in almost every ASEAN country. In Indonesia, for instance, waste management statistics are collected by multiple institutions, each using different methodologies.
‘To address this lack of harmonisation, we aggregated all the data into a graph that paints the whole picture of the state of waste management in Indonesia,’ explained Dr Muhammad Reza Cordova, Researcher at the Indonesian National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), during the discussion on Chapter 14, which focuses on Indonesia.
Dr Liu Yulu, Research Fellow at the Centre for International Law at the National University of Singapore and author of the Singapore chapter, pointed out the wealth of knowledge that these country reports provide.
‘After the book is published, we can anticipate a more intense discussion on the topic of plastic pollution in the ASEAN region,’ she noted.
The full-day meeting generated valuable input, with the authors now set to finalise the book before its scheduled release in early 2026.
Research Associate
Hanoi, 24 September 2025: Research on plastic pollution in Southeast Asia is advancing rapidly, with solutions increasingly tailored to local socioeconomic conditions. However, during discussions for the international legally binding instrument for plastic pollution or INC, it became apparent that scientific advancements and countermeasures coming from Southeast Asia remain underrepresented.
For this reason, ERIA and the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) have initiated the development of a book that gathers the latest scientific information from the region, putting ASEAN+3 research out to the world and promoting cross-country knowledge exchange. Produced in collaboration with 37 experts and practitioners, the forthcoming ASEAN Plastic Book comprises 22 chapters that extensively cover the current state of plastic pollution research, alongside detailed country reports.
On 24 September 2025, the book’s authors gathered in Hanoi to review the content, share feedback, and discuss dissemination efforts following the book’s publication.
Mr Reo Kawamura, Director for Environmental Policy and the Regional Knowledge Centre for Marine Plastic Debris at ERIA, opened the meeting by welcoming the authors from across the region. As lead editor, Mr Kawamura acknowledged the authors’ commendable contributions to making research from ASEAN more accessible to the international community.
Discussions were divided into five sessions, each dedicated to a specific part of the book. The first part focuses on the outlook of plastic pollution, encompassing various topics such as the ecological and human health impacts of plastic pollution.
‘It’s worth noting that there are at least 50 plastic leakage reports from academics and citizen science across the Philippines, but in local languages,’ said Ms Melissa Cardenas, Executive Director at Environweave Integrative Environmental Research, who encouraged incorporating such work to enrich Chapter 3 on the ecological impacts of plastic pollution.
In addition to impacts, Part I of the book also covers countermeasures, including behavioural change interventions; extended producer responsibility; plastics leakage prevention; plastic pollution from agriculture, fishery, and wastewater; and regional and global initiatives towards an international convention on plastic pollution.
‘It’s interesting to know that there are many regional initiatives in ASEAN that overlap. This prompts us to think about the need for collaboration for more meaningful progress,’ noted Dr Nirmala Menikpura, Senior Fellow at IGES, during the discussion on Chapter 10 on global and regional initiatives.
The second part of the book concentrates on plastic waste management data, policy, and practices from ASEAN+3 countries.
Every country chapter comprehensively elaborates the policy landscape of plastic waste management, highlighting its importance as the legal basis for countermeasures.
Challenges in data collection emerged as a recurring theme in almost every ASEAN country. In Indonesia, for instance, waste management statistics are collected by multiple institutions, each using different methodologies.
‘To address this lack of harmonisation, we aggregated all the data into a graph that paints the whole picture of the state of waste management in Indonesia,’ explained Dr Muhammad Reza Cordova, Researcher at the Indonesian National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), during the discussion on Chapter 14, which focuses on Indonesia.
Dr Liu Yulu, Research Fellow at the Centre for International Law at the National University of Singapore and author of the Singapore chapter, pointed out the wealth of knowledge that these country reports provide.
‘After the book is published, we can anticipate a more intense discussion on the topic of plastic pollution in the ASEAN region,’ she noted.
The full-day meeting generated valuable input, with the authors now set to finalise the book before its scheduled release in early 2026.
Research Associate
