In CAPP’s Make the Case Student Competitions, university students across a defined location (Country, Continent, Regional Area) will showcase initiatives that have proven effective at reducing or eliminating plastic waste and “make the case” that their selected national or regional initiative could be replicated elsewhere in the world. 

The competition fills an important niche within knowledge creation and knowledge transfer. “Make the Case” is not another start-up competition. Start-up competitions are unquestionably valuable. However, such pitching exercises are commonplace, embedded within an ecosystem that provides moral and financial support to the best performers, and with the added possibility of future financial returns.

The Make the Case Competition, by contrast, aims to shine a light on programs and innovations that have already been put into practice and have the potential to be scaled, rather than focusing on entirely new start-up concepts. 

These are programs which often do not get the attention they deserve, and which can be helped by visibility, engagement and new collaborations, bringing positive impacts to communities without the necessary need for funding rounds and profit motives.

Putting advanced research skills to the test, competition participants, in teams of three or four students, who will unearth what they consider to be outstanding initiatives addressing plastic pollution that deserve greater

attention, be they projects, programmes or technology solutions. We are particularly interested in innovations that contribute to fundamental change, for example a circular economy for plastics, rather than cosmetic change, such as beach clean-ups. Teams will make the case that their selected initiative could be replicated more broadly.

Our competitions attract the brightest young minds in both Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes and train their intellects on problem-solving analysis of plastic waste. We will publicize their findings, and for the best projects, we will marshal our resources to advance the knowledge transfer from the selected project to other settings. Students, as a result, will have played a tangible part in alleviating the plastics crisis.