The role of bioplastics, social plastics, and just plastics in a circular economy

This renewed research project and fellowship extension will further explore the viable future of a 'circular plastics economy from an anthropological perspective. This means the way in which plastic waste can be minimised, the useful life of plastics can be extended, and (bio)plastics can contribute to regenerating 'nature'. The project has a specific interest in integrating social justice and just transition principles into definitions of the circular economy, as already occurs with conceptualizations of Sustainable Development. It does so through three thematic work packages that build on the original FLF: bioplastics, social plastics, and just plastics.

Bioplastics are often considered problematic in waste policy circles, given the difficulty with which they are composted and their tendency to contaminate conventional plastics recycling streams. Yet they are heralded by the sustainable business community and continue to grow. This work package combines ethnographic research with a producer of two different bioplastic forms of packaging for the pharmaceutical industry with historical research into the debates and controversies surrounding the original bioplastics (casein, parkesine, cellophane) and their replacement with fully synthetic polymers during the twentieth century. Thus, a range of materials that are currently are debated by a limited range of actors in terms of excitement at the production phase and frustration with regards to disposal will benefit from both a nuanced ethnographic study and from a long-lens historical perspective.

Social Plastics explores the way in which the social economy of cooperatives, social enterprises and non-for-profit organisations intersects with a circular economy of plastics, ensuring an important role for underprivileged actors and an approach that is socially as well as environmentally responsible. Specifically, this strand compares plastics wastepickers cooperatives in Argentina and Cuba, seeking to understand the barriers to wastepickers moving up the plastics value chain and how they can be overcome. Through research into successful case-studies, wastepickers in other countries will benefit from an anthropological focus on these issues. The wider business community of plastics packaging generators who want to ensure a regular supply of recycled plastics from wastepickers whilst guaranteeing their human rights will also benefit. A partnership with a New Scots plastics collective in Dundee will ensure South-North knowledge exchange between groups seeking to minimise plastic pollution while providing decent work for underprivileged and vulnerable groups.

Just Plastics focuses on the role that plastics wastepickers are playing in the UNEP plastic pollution treaty and how they are being included in national action plans to tackle plastic pollution. In this work package, the research team will look at the case of South Africa (TBC), chair of the Friends of Wastepickers group at UNEP and a country with some of the most progressive waste policies with regard to the involvement and protection of wastepickers. A complementary study will also be carried out in collaboration with Zero Waste Scotland that will explore the range of policy options available to Scotland in anticipation of the binding and voluntary treaty targets, ensuring a comparative North-South dimension to this work package. As well as international wastepicker organisations and policymakers, a key beneficiary of this package will be the UNEP secretariat itself, since it will provide world-leading social scientific research on the role of wastepickers in plastics recycling and reducing plastic pollution, complementing the natural and chemical science knowledge base that predominates in this sphere.