The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC),  EUROCLIMA+ programme and with the support of the Presidency of the 25th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (COP 25), Chile, studied a proposal to trace and account for plastic in the economies of Latin America and the Caribbean. The traceability and accounting of plastic will allow better responses to those involved in the production, distribution, use, consumption, collection and even recycling of this material.
The proposal, which already has a minimum viable product, is based on an IT tool: the A.P.A. (Attributes for Storage) system. It will record the weight and type of plastic stored, among other data, in a digital register associated with the bar code of the products marketed.
The stored data, incorruptible and public, will allow the generation of statistics useful for the economy, legal and tax responsibilities and control. The system can be extended to track other objects, inputs and products in trade and in different sectors. In addition to the use of this data recording tool, the possibility of chemical recycling of plastics is being explored, which would close the circularity of plastics.