An Australian billionaire is asking household brands to reduce plastic waste by paying a premium for virgin plastics, making recycled products cheaper in comparison.

Andrew Forrest, a mining magnate turned philanthropist who is one of the 10 richest people in Australia, is setting up a $300m (£240m) initiative to encourage the collection and recycling of plastic waste, through his Minderoo Foundation.

The initiative titled Sea The Future will target big companies that use plastic in their packaging, asking them for voluntary contributions that will raise money for recycling projects.

“Industry, fully supported by governments and regulators, is the only sector that can drive the urgent global shift needed to save our oceans from plastic waste,” said Forrest, who launched the plan in New York on Wednesday, after the UN climate action summit highlighted ecological destruction.

“This existential threat requires a global solution, able to transcend borders, politics and corporate responsibility. Only a broadly adopted international industry-led approach will keep plastics in the economy and out of the environment.”

Profile Plastic - what's the problem? Show Why the sudden focus on plastics? Mankind produces roughly its entire body weight in plastics every year. But the vast majority of it is either not recycled, unrecyclable, or doesn't get reused once it's been recycled. Volumes ending up in the natural environment are surging. Plastic can take as much as 500 years to decompose.

What are the implications? Plastic is ubiquitous – and often deadly. It kills sea creatures that eat it but cannot digest it. It gets into the human food chain by contaminating the fish that we eat. It is even in our tap water. There is no science about the long-term impact of humans ingesting plastic.

What is to be done? Taxing plastic bags – or even banning them outright as Kenya has done – has changed consumer and producer behaviour. But what next? Deposit return schemes for plastic bottles work well in several countries. Charging for one-time coffee cups also seems to be on the agenda. But the real solutions may not be top down but ...

... bottom up? Yes. Grassroots movements led the way on plastic bags, and have spawned others such as Refill, which emphasises reusing bottles, and A Plastic Planet, which urges plastic-free aisles in supermarkets. Popular culture remains hugely important: it's just possible that the British series The Blue Planet has changed attitudes overnight.

Photograph: Zakir Chowdhury/Barcroft Images/Barcroft Media

He said the world had only about five years to take drastic action on plastic waste, which is growing so abundant that plastic is on track to outweigh fish in the oceans by 2050, and is estimated to cost $2.2tn a year in environmental and social damage.

By attaching a greater value to plastics, through a higher charge for virgin plastics, Forrest believes that the economics of the packaging industy can be changed, to make it more worthwhile to recycle plastics and avoid using so much material created from fossil fuels.

Forrest said it would also create higher value jobs in recycling and turn waste into an economic resource, which would make it less likely to end up in the sea, and require less fossil fuel than the plastics industry currently uses.

The billionaire has previously called for a global tax on plastics to be imposed by governments, but while some have taken action by banning or putting a charge on plastic bags, and restrictions on single-use plastics, a coordinated global charge looks unlikely.

Sea the Future was welcomed by green campaigners. Andrew Morlet, the chief executive of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which campaigns on the issue, said: “This is exactly the type of systemic thinking needed to build a circular economy, by creating value for used plastic and helping decouple our economy from fossil fuels. [We need to] eliminate the plastics we don’t need, and circulate those we do.”

Funds raised by the Sea the Future project will be devoted to new recycling technology, the infrastructure needed to collect and recycle plastic waste, and the remediation of polluted areas of the seas and coast.