Israeli recycler Plasti-City has received approval to issue plastic credits under Verra's Plastic Waste Reduction Standard. The company, based in Beit She'an, collects, sorts, and recycles plastic waste in northern Israel. Carbon World, which handled the certification, estimates Plasti-City could generate around 50,000 credits over five years, representing roughly 50,000 metric tons of recycled plastic. Each credit is tied to one ton of plastic waste collected or recycled beyond the expected baseline, and credits are recorded in Verra's registry with unique serial numbers. The key question is additionality. If Plasti-City was already doing this work, the credits simply put a price on existing activity. The article notes that Israel has no regulation for the credit market, so participation is voluntary. Buyers are mostly companies with self-imposed environmental targets or multinationals working under international requirements. The CEO says credits should not replace a company's own efforts to cut emissions, but the market structure does not force that distinction. Plastic credits can create a new funding stream for recycling and push companies to measure their waste handling more carefully. Whether they actually reduce plastic pollution depends on the baselines, verification quality, and whether regulators eventually set binding targets. Without those, the market risks rewarding business as usual rather than driving real change.
