Sustainable Production and Consumption 33 (2022) 700–715

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Sustainable Production and Consumption

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/spc

Discerning the circularity of the plastic industry in Bangladesh through

the lens of material flow analysis
Shaiyan Siddique a, Bidhan Bhuson Roy a,b, Sabrina Zaman a,c, Ayushi Khan a, Md. Asef Al Alam a,
Rubel Biswas Chowdhury d,e, Karabi Farhana Biswas a, Mohammad Mosharraf Hossain f,
Shinsuke Murakami g,h, Mohammad Sujauddin a,⁎
a
Department of Environmental Science and Management, North South University, Bashundhara, Dhaka, Bangladesh
b
Department of Wood Science, Faculty of Forestry, The University of British Columbia, Canada
c
School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED), University of Waterloo, Canada
d
School of Engineering, Deakin University, Waurn Ponds, Victoria 3216, Australia
e
EPA Victoria, 200 Victoria Street, Melbourne 3001, Victoria, Australia
f
Institute of Forestry and Environmental Science, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh
g
Department of Systems Innovation, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan
h
Department of Technology Management for Innovation, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This study performs the first national plastic material flow analysis (MFA) of Bangladesh to obtain essential infor-
Received 2 June 2022 mation for developing the roadmap for circular economy. It quantified plastic flows for the fiscal year (FY)
Received in revised form 29 July 2022 2019–2020 by circumventing data deficiencies through innovative methodical approach and an improvised cou-
Accepted 1 August 2022
pling of primary data from extensive field surveys and historical foreign trade statistics. In FY2019–2020,
Available online 04 August 2022
Bangladesh exported only 22 % of its total annual plastic import of 1,710,296 metric tons. The packaging sector
Editor: Prof. Idiano D'Adamo consumed the highest 937,242 metric tons (48 % of the domestic consumption). Per capita consumption and
waste generation were 10.13 kg and 7.9 kg, respectively, leading to plastic use intensity of 7.94 g per 2010US$
GDP in FY2019–2020, indicating an active materialization phase and growth. Bangladesh recycled 362,332 metric
Keywords: tons of plastic a year, 90 % of which was done by the country's robust informal sector, leading to a better recycling
Plastic circularity efficiency (28 %) compared to developed countries. Bangladesh also fared better in plastic decoupling, with a
Sectoral plastic flow decoupling factor of 21 compared to the average of 13 for its developed counterparts. Scenario-based forecast in-
Material flow analysis dicated a maximum of nearly 6 million metric tons of potential imports in FY2029–2030 for the business-as-usual
Resource decoupling
scenario. The plastic industry exhibited better performance than many countries despite poor institutional capac-
Recycling efficiency
ity and lack of policy support by leveraging the informal and semi-formal sectors. Policy insights particularly on
Informal sector
improving waste management by the informal sector, community awareness and stakeholder engagement, im-
proving manufacturing processes and technologies may significantly contribute to circularizing plastic use in
Bangladesh to achieve SDG12 targets.
© 2022 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction manage the end-of-life of plastic products results in careless disposal,

Currently, plastics pose a considerable threat to the environment de-
spite the initial intention to capitalize on their versatile properties of ex-
treme durability, affordability, workability, and suitability for limitless
applications. Globally, 1 million plastic drinking bottles are purchased
every minute, and 5 trillion single-use plastic bags are discarded annu-
ally (UNSD, 2021). The failure to regulate pervasive applications and
⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: mohammad.sujauddin@northsouth.edu,
mohammad.sujauddin@gmail.com (M. Sujauddin).
a third of which ends up in nature (de Souza Machado et al., 2018);
apparent in the accumulation of over 150 million metric tons of plastic
debris in the oceans (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2016). According to
a recent report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD), in the business-as-usual scenario, the global plas-
tic waste generation would be tripled by 2060 from 353 million tonnes
in 2019, and the growth would be the fastest in developing and emerg-
ing countries in Africa and Asia (OECD, 2022). The report also indicated
that implementation of stricter policies globally would lower the
world's GDP by only around 0.8 % while reducing plastic waste by a
third and practically eliminating plastic leakage into the environment.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2022.08.001
2352-5509/© 2022 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
S. Siddique, B.B. Roy, S. Zaman et al.
Considering the havoc of the global plastic waste generation and pol-
lution problem, urgent action is required to formulate and implement
stringent plastic circular economy policies worldwide. Given that the
nature and magnitude of plastic flows and waste generation varies
from one country to another depending on the socioeconomic, environ-
mental, political and technological factors, an in-depth understanding at
the national scale both for developed and developing nations is required
for effective global policymaking. Considering this important fact, as
outlined in the Literature review section, research efforts are already
underway to understand the characteristics of plastic material flow at
the national scale. Although a considerable number of plastic material
flow analysis (MFA) have been conducted for developed nations, devel-
oping nations receive limited attention mainly due to lack of necessary
data. Without gaining necessary insights on the behaviour of plastic ma-
terial flow in the developing country context, it wouldn't be possible to
formulate effective policies to solve the global plastic waste generation
and pollution problem. Tracking flows and end-of-life destinations of
plastics is crucial for densely populated developing countries at least
for two reasons – (i) these markets have the potential for explosive
growth despite their seemingly lower consumption, and (ii) to achieve
a complete understanding of the circularity of the global plastic supply
chain where both giants (such as China) and dwarves contribute.
On top of the lack of information on plastic material flows in the
developing country context, the majority of the available plastic MFAs
only consider specific sectors or singular types of plastic material or
waste. For instance, plastic material flow through fishing gears used in
commercial fishing in Norway (Deshpande et al., 2020), plastic packag-
ing management in Italy (Lombardi et al., 2021), organic waste in
Switzerland (Kawecki et al., 2021), waste electrical and electronic
equipment in Belgium and the Netherlands (Lase et al., 2021), post-
consumer plastic packaging recycling in the Netherlands (Schneider
et al., 2022) and Brazil (Pimentel Pincelli et al., 2021), plastic packaging
in Austria (Van Eygen et al., 2018a; Van Eygen et al., 2018b), medical
waste management in China (Liu et al., 2022), and industrial waste in
South Korea (Lee et al., 2021). While this spotlight within a particular
sector accurately displays the flows within it, it creates a rift in illustrat-
ing the multisectoral plastic material interactions to present the overall
picture of plastic flow on the national scale. Our endeavor attempts to
overcome these limitations by presenting a detailed picture of the na-
tional plastic material flow through analyzing the nature and magnitude
of plastic flows within the various sectors of Bangladesh, which is one of
the most populous (ranks 8th highest in number of population) and
fastest growing national economies. The country is also the 2nd largest
ready-made garments (RMG) exporter in the world, where a significant
amount of plastic flow is associated with its RMG sector. Utilizing an
innovative methodical approach, this study also attempts to overcome
the challenge of data limitation, which is one of the main barriers of con-
ducting detailed national plastic MFA in developing countries. The new
knowledge gained through obtaining the overall picture of Bangladesh's
national plastic material flow would surely be useful to develop the
knowledge base/pool necessary to formulate global plastic circular
economy policy. Considering Bangladesh (as a riverine country)
ranked 8th among the top 20 countries for the mismanagement of
plastic waste in 2010 alone, with approximately 310,000 metric
tonnes of plastic waste discharged into the ocean (Jambeck et al.,
2015), insights gained from this study would be useful in formulat-
ing policies for reducing plastic pollution of ocean, ultimately reduc-
ing the global plastic pollution problem. This study also presents a
unique picture of plastic management in a country with dense popu-
lation, vigorously increasing domestic demand, plastic recycling by
the informal sector, and inadequate infrastructure for plastic waste
management (UNEP, 2014) causing indirect urban municipal prob-
lems like clogged drains, increased pressure on landfills, etc. creating
a tremendous social and environmental sustainability challenge at
the national as well as global scale (Mourshed et al., 2017). Hence,
this endeavor navigates through major plastic flows for the first
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Sustainable Production and Consumption 33 (2022) 700–715
time in Bangladesh to elucidate hotspots for efficiency enhancement
through governance and policy guidance.
Although none of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) have
plastic pollution as the main theme, the strong relationship between
the SDGs and the necessity of controlling plastic pollution is evident. A
UNEP accredited NGO based in the Netherlands, named Plastic Soup
Foundation, has highlighted this relationship with a number of SDGs
i.e., SDG 3: Good health and well-being, SDG 6: Clean water and sanita-
tion, SDG 11: Sustainable cities and communities, SDG 12: Responsible
consumption and production, SDG 13: Climate action, SDG 14: Life
below water and SDG 15: Life on land (Westerbos, 2021). Clearly, a
global action on formulating and implementing policies for plastic circu-
lar economy at the national scale, particularly focusing on developing
nations like Bangladesh (lacking policies for plastic waste manage-
ment), would contribute to the timely achievement of the targets
under these SDGs. In that context, there is a high significance for this
study to gain necessary insights on the overall plastic management
through a detailed material flow analysis, which is a robust technique
based on the principle of mass balance (Bringezu and Moriguchi,
2002). MFA is the preferred tool to achieve such a complex task in
data-limited situations because of its versatility and flexibility in data
collection, presentation, and the quantification of uncertainty, among
other benefits. As a whole, this study will contribute to recognizing
the global concern of plastic pollution, an integral part of the Agenda
2030 of the SDGs, while specifically addressing some of the key targets
under SDG 12 on sustainable production and consumption of plastics
(UN, 2016).
2. Literature review
Lack of availability and access to reliable data and literature on
plastic in Bangladesh, even compared to countries in similar or lower
phases of development, makes conducting a representative MFA chal-
lenging (Chowdhury et al., 2021), which this research team realizes
from their experience of the first MFA on the steel industry in
Bangladesh (Sujauddin et al., 2016). As mentioned already, conducting
plastic MFA is generally challenging due to the intense data require-
ments, the complexity, and the broadness of distinct flows of different
types of plastics. Hence only a handful of in-depth plastic MFAs are
available, mostly from developed countries and regions, including
Norway (Deshpande et al., 2020), the Netherlands (Joosten et al.,
2000), Switzerland (Kawecki et al., 2021), Italy (Lombardi et al.,
2021), Serbia (Vujić et al., 2010), Germany (Patel et al., 1998), Austria
(Van Eygen et al., 2017; Van Eygen et al., 2018a; Van Eygen et al.,
2018b), Japan (Nakatani et al., 2020), South Korea (Jang et al., 2015),
USA (Di et al., 2021; Heller et al., 2020) and Europe (Kawecki et al.,
2018). Literature focused on developing countries is rare. Some studies
(Mutha et al., 2006 and Nandy et al., 2015 for India; Bureecam et al.,
2018 for Thailand; Millette et al., 2019 for Trinidad and Tobago) tried
to address this imbalance as the developing world must conceive a
sustainable business model for plastic. Research on microplastics is
frequent, and efforts to outline the general situation of plastics in
Bangladesh are visible (Nadiruzzaman et al., 2022; UNDP, 2021). How-
ever, there is no in-depth MFA addressing all major plastic flow streams
within the country. Based on the review of available plastic MFAs, the
novelty of this study can be highlighted at least in four different aspects.
Firstly, the majority of the existing plastic MFAs, including many of the
recent state-of-the-art studies such as Lopez-Aguilar et al. (2022), Lase
et al. (2021), Di et al. (2021), Lombardi et al. (2021), and Kawecki
et al. (2021) are heavily based on reliable trade and flow statistics
from regulatory and trade authorities, which are not available in de-
veloping countries such as Bangladesh. This study, therefore, is a pi-
oneer methodological example of conducting such a data-intensive
study through primary fieldwork with scanty secondary statistics.
Secondly, no reliable peer-reviewed literature currently exists that
quantifies the national flows and stocks of plastic in Bangladesh
S. Siddique, B.B. Roy, S. Zaman et al.
compared to the scope and level of details provided in this study.
Thirdly, while existing literature merely mentions the informal
sector's contribution to the waste management system of different
countries (Ezeah et al., 2013), this study specifies the level of engage-
ment of the informal sector in Bangladesh. Hence, this study may be
of significant interest to other countries around the world undergo-
ing similar development phases characterized by increasing plastic
demand, especially Asian and African countries where plastic waste
and recycling are dominantly managed by informal recycling and
remanufacturing entities (Ndiso, 2019; Babayemi et al., 2019; UNEP,
2014). Fourthly, the plastic recycling efficiency of Bangladesh is com-
pared with different developed and developing countries focusing
on three important phases viz. plastic waste generation, recycling,
and loss.
In a developing country context, a higher recycling efficiency can be
attained through the inclusion of informal sectors in addressing the
problems of waste management (Joseph, 2006). Hence, the informal
sector of Bangladesh, like other developing countries around the
world characterized by a huge unemployment burden (Chandran
et al., 2020), has the prospect to offer a solution for a strong and inclu-
sive circular economy (World Bank, 2021b), a closed loop economic
model directed towards downscaling waste generation and promoting
circular usage of resources while satisfying the increasing domestic de-
mand (Nhamo, 2008). Redesigning such a plastic business model with
minimized waste requires a transition towards a circular economy
that is dependent on the collaboration of multi-stakeholders such as
the local and national governments, funding organizations, academi-
cians, research institutes, civil service organizations at different scales
(Kujala et al., 2021). By closing the waste loop, the circular economy
can instigate sustainable growth of the plastic market of Bangladesh
(World Bank, 2021b), by crafting modified value chains, employment
opportunities, and environmentally cognizant plastic products, while
addressing global sustainability challenges involving social, economic,
and environmental aspects.
Fig. 1. System architecture of the study showing the processes and flows of plastic in Bangladesh (here, I = Import, E = Export, and F = Flow).
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Sustainable Production and Consumption 33 (2022) 700–715
3. Methodology
The detailed methodology of our study is described in this
section, following the appropriate sequence of conducting MFA. We
began by drawing the system boundary and setting the scope of
this study; then, we defined the major elements of this study: the
processes, flows, and formal and informal sectors. Afterwards, we
explained in detail our techniques for collecting primary and second-
ary data, flow quantification methods, statistical and uncertainty
analyses, and methods for the future forecast of the plastic industry
of Bangladesh.
3.1. System boundary and scope
The primary system contains three broad subsystems, which are
i) production, ii) consumption, and iii) waste management consisting of
six processes viz., i) plastic resin trade, ii) product manufacture, iii)
finished products trade and distribution, iv) use, v) scrap collection and
sorting, and vi) recycling respectively denoted as P1 in light gray, P2 in
light blue, P3 in light yellow, P4 in light orange, P5 in rose and P6 in
light green in Fig. 1 which depicts detailed system architecture of this
endeavor. Fig. 2 shows the finished products trade and distribution pro-
cess. Bangladesh mainly uses imported resins or pellets to manufacture
plastic products for the local market and export. Therefore, evaluation of
major import and export flows gave an overall picture of the plastic
budget, further refined through field surveys to elucidate domestic
flows. For a better perspective, we have extensively analyzed
Bangladesh's plastic foreign trade statistics for the last two decades in
Sections 4.1.1 and 4.1.2. Hence, this research included three distinct
flow types - import, export, and domestic. Their coverage and sources
can be found in Supplementary Material Table S1 (Supplementary
Material Table S2 lists all flows).
The Bangladesh Central Products Classification (BBS, 2011) was used
to resolve the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System
S. Siddique, B.B. Roy, S. Zaman et al.
Fig. 2. Breakdown of the finished products trade and distribution process (P3) from Fig. 1.
(HS) codes into resins, semi-products, finished products, and scrap
flows (F1–F8; see Supplementary Material Table S3 for details). This
study excluded materials including yarn, filaments, soles, interlin-
ings, and fabrics used in apparel and other export-oriented indus-
tries since these are almost entirely imported under distinct HS
codes with minimal domestic production and exported as finished
products. However, the scope of this study included locally-
manufactured ready-made garments accessories with high plastic
content (see Supplementary Material Table S4), which accounts for
a substantial amount of the imported raw materials (such as resins).
3.2. Definition of the processes and flows
3.2.1. Processes
Plastics enter the system primarily as resins (F1 of Fig. 1; see
Section 4.1.1 for details) through the plastic resin trade process. The
product manufacture process directs finished products from over 5000
small, medium, and large plastic manufacturers (BPGMEA, 2021) to
the finished products trade and distribution process, which also handles
imported finished products flow (F3). The use process represents the
plastic consumption in Bangladesh by 8 major sectors as per the field
survey – namely, i) RMG accessories, ii) building and construction, iii)
electrical and electronics, iv) furniture, v) healthcare, vi) household,
kitchen, and tableware, vii) agricultural and industrial products, and
viii) packaging. Manufacturer surveys (see Section 3.5.1 for details)
indicated automobiles as a major future use sector with a negligible cur-
rent consumption. Apart from healthcare and packaging, all use sectors
retain significant plastic stocks (a full set of products of each sector is
given in Supplementary Material Table S4). The scrap collection and
sorting process consists of informal floating hawkers (locally known as
feriwala), informal scrap shops (locally known as bhangari dokan),
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Sustainable Production and Consumption 33 (2022) 700–715
plastic scrap markets as well as a few formal plastic scrap collectors
who began operations in recent years (see Section 3.3 for details). The
recycling process includes the country's formal and informal plastic
scrap processing facilities. Since the natural environment and landfills
are outside the main system, materials flowing therein are considered
leaking out of the system, as shown in Fig. 1.
3.2.2. Flows
Mainly three categories of flows: import, export, and domestic,
dominate plastics of Bangladesh (see Supplementary Material
Table S2). Import flows - the most important flows for plastic in
Bangladesh (F1 to F4 of Fig. 1) – consists predominantly of resin or
pellets (F1) followed by smaller quantities of semi-manufactured
products (F2) for further processing, a small number of finished
products (F3), and a tiny amount of plastic scrap (F4). On the other
hand, plastic exports comprise a comparatively insignificant quan-
tity of primary and semi-finished products (F5–F6), finished prod-
ucts such as woven bags, household utensils (F7), and processed
plastic scrap from the recycling process (F8), except deemed export
of RMG accessories (F21). Deemed export indicates those products
that are not exported from their own manufacturers but assimilated
into the products exported by other industries. Therefore, though the
sale of RMG accessories occurs as a domestic flow (F12), it is deemed
an export since the RMG products manufactured using the accesso-
ries are eventually exported. Finished products from manufacturing
go through the trade process (F10) as product flows across the 8
use sectors (F12–F19) for commercial distribution in the domestic mar-
ket. Throughout this study, scrap denotes the material collected for
recycling, while waste refers to the uncollected, disposed materials.
Households accumulate valuable scrap and periodically sell it to infor-
mal collectors (Sinha and Amin, 1995).
S. Siddique, B.B. Roy, S. Zaman et al.
Moreover, field surveys indicated the presence of an efficient infor-
mal scrap collection sector in Bangladesh (see Section 3.3 for details).
Accordingly, we assumed 100 % collection efficiency for plastic wastes
other than packaging and healthcare wastes (F20, F22–F24, F26–F27).
On the contrary, consumers dispose of used packaging, for example,
polybags, plastic wrappers, containers, and bottles as household
solid waste (HSW) into the municipal solid waste (MSW) stream. In-
formal collectors selectively collect valuable scrap like PET bottles
(F28), disregarding others (such as polybags) which leads to open
dumping in the environment (F29). Despite a dedicated legal tool -
“The medical waste (management and processing) rule, 2008”
(MoEFCC, 2008), healthcare wastes end up in general landfills in-
stead of those suited for hazardous waste due to incompetent man-
agement. Field surveys confirmed that wastes are predominantly
manually sorted by informal workers, the sorted wastes are sent to
landfills (F30), and sorted scrap to the recycling process (F31). Infor-
mal plastic recycling factories have inefficient equipment producing
low-quality recycled resins mainly used by small and medium man-
ufacturers to make low-value products such as bin bags, household
products, etc. (UNESCAP, 2011).
3.3. The informal and formal sectors
Generally, and especially in developed countries, a formal waste
management system thrives to preserve public health and the pristine
environment, while the informal system is driven by economic gains
(Poerbo, 1991). However, this definition of formal and informal systems
is essentially not applicable to the plastic waste management system in
Bangladesh, as formal scrap collectors and recyclers are virtually nonex-
istent. Therefore, we took a novel approach to define formal and infor-
mal systems to better represent the situation in developing countries
such as Bangladesh. This study identifies entities registered with the
government and paying taxes as formal, and others as informal collec-
tors and recyclers. Our definition of the informal sector is also in har-
mony with the World Bank's definition - “Extensive economic activity
that is usually small-scale, labor-intensive, unregulated, and competi-
tive” (World Bank, 2021b). For better understanding and readability,
we believe it is important to describe some of the vernacular nomencla-
ture associated with the informal sector in Bangladesh as used in this
study. A feriwala, according to World Bank (2021b), is someone who
purchases or barters for waste and old materials from diverse sources
by using their self-capital or by taking loans from the shop owners
where they sell the collected materials. A bhangari dokan is defined by
World Bank (2021b) as a small shop that buys and sells recyclable
waste and scrap items. The informal entities capitalize on low govern-
ment control and are fueled by financial need, providing households
an outlet to sell valuable plastic scrap. Field surveys indicated that
even if a portion of this scrap somehow reach the landfills bypassing
previous sorting and collection, the informal scrap collectors operating
in and around the landfills collect them (see Section 3.5.4 for details).
The unique vibrancy of the informal sector in Bangladesh stems from
the fact that the informal sector finds the formal sector as buyers within
the market mechanism for the items they collect (especially PET scrap).
This itself is a lesson for other developing countries where such a market
is not as prevalent (Ndiso, 2019; UNEP, 2018).
3.4. Secondary data collection
Bangladesh's export and import data are maintained by the
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the National Board of Revenue
(NBR), and UN Comtrade (NBR, 2021; UN Comtrade, 2021). Unfortu-
nately, scattered and inadequate BBS data with the restricted temporal
window of only three fiscal years (FY) was not amenable to further
analysis. Data from the NBR was comprehensive but challenging
to access due to its offline nature. In contrast, the UN Comtrade data
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Sustainable Production and Consumption 33 (2022) 700–715
was easily accessible online, though it often contains discrepancies
(Hayakawa, 2020).
The NBR maintains a Bangladeshi fiscal year database that spans be-
tween July 01 and June 30, unlike UN Comtrade, which maintains data
by calendar year. Hence, we used the average quantity from two
consecutive calendar years to obtain the respective fiscal year, i.e., the
value of FY2000–2001 was the average of 2000 and 2001 UN Comtrade
data. The resultant comparison between adjusted UN Comtrade
import data for the calendar years 2000–2020 and NBR's import
data from FY2000–2001 to FY2019–2020 showed high consistency
(Supplementary Material Fig. S1). Export data for HS codes 3901 to
3926 from the NBR was only available between FY2011–2012 and
FY2019–2020. Therefore, data for FY2000–2001 to FY2010–2011 were
reconstructed from UN Comtrade following the same approach.
The comparison between export data from the NBR and UN Comtrade
(Supplementary Material Fig. S2) showed a consistent pattern. The
NBR dataset is naturally more reliable as the government-mandated
monitoring agency for imports and exports, but data for some
flows were unavailable. Data from the UN Comtrade and field sur-
veys supplemented these gaps (see Supplementary Material Table S1
for details).
3.5. Field survey
The field survey, designed to address the data gaps for the domestic
flows, was undoubtedly the most crucial aspect that made this plastic
MFA possible in Bangladesh. The methodologies in related literature
from other countries mainly relied on secondary datasets from the gov-
ernment, NGOs, and prior studies. The novelty of the methodology of
this study is the higher dependence on primary data in the absence of
secondary data in this country, which makes our study methodologi-
cally robust. Supplementary Material Fig. S3 summarized the field
survey and data utilization framework for this study. The field survey
for this study included the following four broad categories:
3.5.1. Manufacturer surveys
The capital city, Dhaka, is the hub of the plastic industry in
Bangladesh, accounting for 65 % of the manufacturers which are
agglomerated mainly in Old Dhaka neighborhoods including
Lalbagh, Mitford, Islambagh, Kamrangirchar, Zinzira, and nearby
areas (BPGMEA, 2021). We conducted an extensive survey on 23 plastic
product manufacturers across all but the healthcare sector for primary
data on domestic product flows from June 2019 to July 2021. Even
though the healthcare sector of Bangladesh is a large plastic consumer
and waste generator, proper disposal of such wastes is virtually negligi-
ble due to policy loopholes, lack of implementation, and lack of institu-
tional capacity making healthcare waste management a big headache
for this country (Barua and Hossain, 2021). Furthermore, there report-
edly exists a black market to recycle plastic healthcare products inap-
propriately and illegally (Devnath and Ahmed, 2020). Therefore, it is
exceedingly difficult to collect any type of data for the healthcare sector,
and data on the black market of plastic healthcare wastes could also
not be collected from primary or secondary sources. Hence, we used
an indirect method to quantify these flows as described in the sec-
tion ‘Flows through the recycling process’. The questionnaire used dur-
ing the manufacturer survey can be found in Supplementary Material
Questionnaire S1.
3.5.2. Informal scrap collection and recycling surveys
Dhaka, the most densely populated urban center, has the largest
plastic market, generates the highest post-consumer scrap, and has
the largest number of informal scrap dealers. The Islambagh and
Kamrangirchar areas host the largest agglomeration of informal
plastic scrap collectors and recyclers in Bangladesh, receiving in-
flows of around 90 % of the total national scrap collected for
recycling, the rest being managed by formal recyclers scattered
S. Siddique, B.B. Roy, S. Zaman et al.
across the country. 17 informal sector stakeholders (13 collectors
and 4 recyclers) were interviewed in person during the informal
scrap collection and recycling survey (see Supplementary Material
Fig. S4 for additional details on the informal sector flows). The ques-
tionnaire used during the informal sector survey can be found in
Supplementary Material Questionnaire S2. We also consulted 3 for-
mal sector businesses (2 collectors and 1 recycler) located across
the greater Dhaka region outside Islambagh and Kamrangirchar to
obtain data on plastic scrap collection and recycling.
3.5.3. Household solid waste surveys
The field survey showed informal collectors' reluctance to collect
low-value plastics like polybags and other single-use plastic packaging
discarded as HSW. HSW is the most significant component of municipal
solid waste (MSW) (Alam and Qiao, 2020; Sujauddin et al., 2008).
Hence, we conducted a waste survey on 250 households in Dhaka and
Rajshahi, two major cities of Bangladesh, for three days - 2 weekdays
and one holiday which confirmed that nearly all plastic wastes disposed
of through the HSW stream are single-use packaging wastes remaining
in the environment or buried in the landfills (see Section 3.5.4). The ob-
servation was confirmed by a report on plastic waste in Bangladesh
published by the World Bank in December 2021 (World Bank, 2021b).
The questionnaire used during the HSW survey can be found in Supple-
mentary Material Questionnaire S3.
3.5.4. Landfill surveys
Two major landfills in Dhaka, the Matuail and the Aminbazar land-
fills, were surveyed through empirical observation and discussions
with on-site informal scrap collectors. The collectors were asked about
the types of plastics that arrive, are collected, and get buried in the
landfills. They confirmed the burial of plastic healthcare wastes
such as saline bags, urine bags, syringes, etc., in landfills (F25). The
bulk of the valuable scraps, including polyethylene terephthalate
(PET), or high-density polyethylene (HDPE) bottles, is collected
from the MSW stream before and even after arrival at the landfills
(as mentioned in Section 3.3). Furthermore, most low-value packag-
ing wastes are littered across the country (F29) and only a small
quantity gets buried in landfills. The landfill survey was unstructured
and consisted mainly of empirical observation, discussion with site
workers, and, expert opinion.
3.6. Method of accounting and quantification of the flows and stocks
3.6.1. Mass balance
This study is fundamentally based on the mass balance concept, as
shown in Eq. (1) below
PF input ¼ PF output þ PF d_stock þ PF loss ð1Þ
where, PFinput is the input of plastic into a process from within/outside
the system boundary; PFoutput is the plastic output from a process and/
or is the plastic leaving the system boundary, PFd_stock refers to the
change in the amount of plastic being retained in a process and PFloss
refers to the amount of plastic going to the natural environment and
landfills.
3.6.2. Import and export flows
The mass values from the NBR and UN Comtrade were used as the
import flows (F1–F4) and a part of the export flows (F5 to F8). Field sur-
vey data helped to calculate the RMG accessories export flow (F21).
Bangladesh Central Products Classification (BBS, 2011) was used to allo-
cate sectoral imports (F42–F45) and exports (F46–F49) of finished
products in the finished products trade and distribution process (Fig. 2)
from respective import and export flows F3 and F7 (see Supplementary
Material Table S5).
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Sustainable Production and Consumption 33 (2022) 700–715
3.6.3. Domestic flows
3.6.3.1. Resin consumption. The resin consumption flow i.e., the quantita-
tive flow of resins from resin traders to the product manufacturers (F9)
was calculated by Eq. (2):
F9 ¼ F1–F5 ð2Þ
where, F1 is imported plastic resin flow and F5 is exported plastic
resin flow.
3.6.3.2. Finished products and manufacturing scrap flow. The finished
products flow, i.e., the total quantity of finished products from the
manufacturing process that enters the market for domestic consump-
tion and exports (F10), was quantified by Eq. (3):
F10 ¼ ðF2 þ F9 þ F33Þ  ðF6 þ F11Þ ð3Þ
where, F2 is imported plastic semi-products, F33 is recycled plastic, F6 is
exported plastic semi-products, and F11 is manufacturing scrap flow
obtained from field survey data.
3.6.3.3. Sectoral finished product flows. As mentioned above, Fig. 2 details
the finished products trade and distribution process, including the sec-
toral breakdown of imported and exported finished products. Manu-
facturer surveys provided the sectoral finished products' flows other
than healthcare (F34–F37, F39–F41). The method to obtain the sec-
toral import (F42–F45) and export (F46–F49) flows is described in
Section 3.6.2. Eq. (4) gave the finished product flows to the use sec-
tors (F12–F15, F17–F19):
SFP ¼ ðSFPPM þ SIFP Þ  SEFP ð4Þ
where, SFP refers to the sectoral finished product flows to the use pro-
cess (F12–F15, F17–F19), SFPPM refers to the sectoral finished product
flows from the product manufacture process (F34–F37, F39–F41), SIFP
refers to the sectoral imported finished products (F42–F45), SEFP refers
to the sectoral exported finished products (F46–F49).
In the absence of reliable data on the manufacture and flow of plastic
healthcare products in Bangladesh (F16), an indirect approach was
adopted. According to Rahman et al. (2020), a minimum of 14,500 met-
ric tons of healthcare waste were generated in Bangladesh in April 2020,
influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Owing to the short lifespan of
healthcare products (Van Eygen et al., 2017) and data unavailability,
this study assumed that healthcare waste equated to the supply, con-
sidering no accumulation in stock. The monthly value is multiplied
by 12 to reach the yearly healthcare product flow (F16). Accordingly,
for Bangladesh, the per capita consumption of plastic healthcare
products and waste generation were 1.06 kg for FY2019–2020.
3.6.3.4. Sectoral scrap flows from the use process. Field survey data was
used to quantify flows F20–F24 and F26–F28. Healthcare waste flow
(F25) was quantified by multiplying the waste generation value for
April 2020 from Rahman et al. (2020) by 12. The processing quantity
of the current functional healthcare waste management organizations
is negligible compared to the generation rate. Therefore, all healthcare
wastes (F25) were assumed to end at landfills without an organized
system for disinfection and recycling. The plastic packaging scrap
flow primarily to open dumps in the environment (F29) was quanti-
fied using Eq. (5).
F29 ¼ F19  F28 ð5Þ
where, F19 is packaging sectoral product flow, F28 is collected packag-
ing scrap flow.
3.6.3.5. Flows through the scrap collection and sorting process. Plastic scrap
undergoes cleaning, sorting, and cutting after reaching the formal and
S. Siddique, B.B. Roy, S. Zaman et al.
informal scrap shops mostly by manual labor. Around an average of 3 %
(range 2–5 %) of the total scrap input gets discarded to landfill as sorting
waste flow (F30), according to survey data from 15 scrap collectors
(both formal and informal). It was calculated using the Eq. (6)
F30 ¼ ðF11 þ F20 þ F22 þ F23 þ F24 þ F26 þ F27 þ F28Þ  0:03
where, F11 is manufacturing scrap, F20 is RMG accessories scrap flow,
F22 is building and construction scrap flow, F23 is electrical and elec-
tronics scrap flow, F24 is plastic furniture scrap flow, F26 is plastic
household, kitchenware, and tableware scrap flow, F27 is agricultural
and industrial products scrap flow, F28 is packaging scrap flow.
Sorted and processed plastic scrap flow (F31) sold to the recyclers
was quantified using Eq. (7).
F31 ¼ ðF11 þ F20 þ F22 þ F23 þ F24 þ F26 þ F27 þ F28Þ  F30
3.6.3.6. Flows through the recycling process. Plastic recyclers receive in-
puts from two major sources: local scrap collectors (F31) and imported
scrap (F4). The NBR datasets provided data for the imported scrap flow
(F4) and exported scrap flow (F8). Importing waste, scrap, and other
low-quality products are prohibited by Bangladesh's import policy
order (2015–18), effective during FY2019–2020. However, field surveys
indicated formal recyclers import them through special permission.
Illegal imports and exports of scrap are highly likely but were not ac-
counted for in this study as those are not reflected in the NBR data.
Data from 5 plastic recyclers in Dhaka (both formal and informal)
showed that about 1.6 % of the total inputs became recycling wastes
flow (F32) disposed to landfills which were quantified using the Eq. (8).
F32 ¼ ðF31 þ F4Þ  0:016
The flow of recycled plastic to product manufacturers (F33) is pri-
marily used to make cheap products for the middle- and lower-
income people of Bangladesh, and this flow was quantified by Eq. (9).
F33 ¼ ðF31 þ F4Þ  ðF8 þ F32Þ
3.7. Plastic recycling efficiency and decoupling factor
We have compared the plastic recycling efficiency of Bangladesh
with different developed and developing countries by taking plastic
waste generation, recycling, and loss perspectives into account. The for-
mula for calculating the plastic recycling efficiency is adopted from a
previous substance flow analysis by this research team (Rahman et al.,
2019):
recycled plastic
Plastic recycling efficiency ¼  100
total plastic waste generation
We further calculated the decoupling factor using the method em-
ployed by Rahman et al. (2019) - the ratio between primary input and
recycled input - for selected developed and developing countries to
show the substitutability potential of recycled plastic (see Section 4.2.2
for further details).
3.8. Uncertainty analysis
Our data was sourced from various national and international da-
tabases, literature, educated assumptions from experts, and field
surveys on relevant stakeholders having a varied understanding of
the research's temporal, geographical, and overall scope. Hence, it
is essential to acknowledge and quantitatively assess the degree of
uncertainty to supplement the accuracy of the MFA model. This
study adopted the approach Van Eygen et al. (2017) used in their
plastic MFA study for Austria; Laner et al. (2015) described the
Sustainable Production and Consumption 33 (2022) 700–715
method in detail. Uncertainty was assessed based on five indicators
- reliability, completeness, geographical correlation, temporal corre-
lation, and other correlation (Eq. (11)) with four possible scores of 1
to 4 (a score of 1 indicating good data quality and 4 referring to infe-
rior quality). The rubric followed while assigning correlation scores
ð6Þ (1 to 4) for each indicator is explained in Supplementary Material
Table S6(a). Further, to convert the assigned indicator score to the
measure of uncertainty, sensitivity level (high, medium and low) of
the flow values concerning a change in the correlation indicator
was assigned (Supplementary Material Table S6(b)). Expert opinion
was then used to appraise the assumption empirically (more informa-
tion related to sensitivity level and assigned uncertainty value for indi-
cators following Laner et al., 2015 is available in Supplementary
Material Table S7). This qualitative uncertainty value was applied
ð7Þ based on the indicator score (Supplementary Material Table S8). We
assumed our data is normally distributed, and coefficient of variation
(CV) was used to measure uncertainty (the complete uncertainty
results are available in Supplementary Material Table S8). CV is in
an exponential relationship with the scores of the indicators,
i.e., uncertainty rises exponentially with the score value. After assigning
the scores for indicators, unified CV values for the data were obtained
from Eq. (11), apart from expert opinion. For the expert opinion, the
CV for a score is predefined (Laner et al., 2015) and represents aggregate
uncertainty.
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
CV total ¼ CV reliability 2 þ CV completeness 2 þ CV geogr:corr: 2 þ CV temp:corr: 2 þ CV other corr: 2 ð11Þ
3.9. Future forecast of plastic imports in Bangladesh
ð8Þ
Imports were analyzed to propose four scenarios to predict the fu-
ture of plastic imports in Bangladesh (a summary of them can be
found in Supplementary Material Table S9). Scenario A is based on a lin-
ear regression model trained to extrapolate imports up to FY2029–2030
based on the historical import data from FY2000–2001 to 2019–20.
ð9Þ Model data was split at 80:20 as training: testing data. The model
(Eq. (12)) accuracy was 88 %, with the R2 value 0.8811.
Y ¼ θ0 þ θ1 X 1 ð12Þ
In Eq. (12), Y is the predictor variable (future plastic import), θ0 is the
intercept for plastics import, X1 is the input features representing fiscal
years, and θ1 is the respective coefficients. For scenario B, the average
import growth rate between FY2000–2001 and 2019–2020 was 13 %.
This was considered the business as usual (BAU) scenario (B). This aver-
age growth rate was used to foresee the probable future import. Scenar-
ios C and D were constructed to see the changes in the future of import
substitution in response to improved recycling efficiency. In scenario C,
ð10Þ
we doubled the percentage of recycled plastic entering the product
manufacture process (F33) compared to the total flow (sum of F10
and F11) in FY2019–2020, which pushed it to 36 %, and we subtracted
this percentage of imports each year from scenario B (BAU) to obtain
scenario C. We did the same in scenario D but it was based on scenario
A (linear growth) instead.
4. Results and discussion
In this section we describe the findings of this study along with
discussions on key policy guidelines and the way forward. Since
Bangladesh is fully import dependent for plastic, the section opens
with an overview of the historical foreign trade context of Bangladesh,
which indicates the pattern of growth and consumption of plastic
since the turn of the millennium. Then, the findings of this study
for the FY2019–2020 have been presented and the vital contribution
of the informal sector highlighted. Afterwards, we discussed about
the future of plastic in Bangladesh through concepts such as
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S. Siddique, B.B. Roy, S. Zaman et al.
intensity of use and scenario based forecasts, and described the re-
lated policy implications.
4.1. Foreign trade perspectives of the plastic industry of Bangladesh since
the turn of the millennium
4.1.1. Import perspectives
Devoid of fossil fuel reserves for primary plastic production, imports
remain the main source of plastic for Bangladesh's nascent plastic indus-
try. Fig. 3 summarizes plastic import and export growth perspectives in
Bangladesh since 2000. Fig. 3 (a) shows a rapid and consistent increase
in predominantly resin-dominated plastic imports to Bangladesh with
the GDP growth since FY2000–2001. A significant trough can be ob-
served only during FY2007–2008 while the world witnessed a global
recession, which also affected Bangladesh. Polypropylene (PP) and
polyethylene (PE) resins made up the bulk (51 %) of imports, as
shown in Fig. 3 (b) - PP is the main raw material for a wide range
of products, including furniture and household products, among
others, and the packaging sector primarily uses PE. Despite the pro-
hibition on scrap import, 12,779 metric tons of scrap were imported
with special government permission by formal recyclers (F4) during
FY2019–2020 alone. Fig. 3 (a) also shows a negligible amount of fin-
ished product imports each year owing to the abundance of cheap
labor, which translates to cheaper products for consumers manufac-
tured in Bangladesh by importing resins than finished products.
Fig. 3 (c) shows the dominance of packaging products in the finished
product imports since FY2000–2001. This is primarily since the sensi-
tive nature of many packaging products makes it a challenge to produce
in Bangladesh. One example is pharmaceutical packaging which re-
quires higher quality raw materials, sterile and precise machinery, and
skilled operators. Over the last two decades, Bangladesh imported the
highest amount of plastics from Taiwan (see Supplementary Material
Fig. S5).
4.1.2. Export perspectives
Fig. 3 also depicts the export perspectives of plastic from Bangladesh
since 2000. Fig. 3 (d) shows consistent growth of plastic exports from
Fig. 3. Growth perspectives (in terms of import and export) of plastics in Bangladesh during FY2000–2001 to FY2019–2020: a) import and d) export of different types of plastic and its
growth against GDP and population, ratio of different types of cumulative b) imports and e) exports and shares of total cumulative c) imported and f) exported finished products. Data
sources: (NBR, 2021), (UN Comtrade, 2021) and (World Bank, 2021a). Underlying data for this figure can be found in Supplementary Material Table S10.
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Sustainable Production and Consumption 33 (2022) 700–715
Bangladesh with GDP. Most of the export growth was contributed by
plastic scrap and finished products. Over this period, Fig. 3 (e) depicts
the cumulative sectoral shares of exported finished products. Scrap ex-
port abruptly declined since FY2017–2018 as a result of China's ban on
plastic scrap imports from 2017 (Wen et al., 2021), which was the main
destination of scrap. The exported scrap in FY2019–2020, amounting to
3703 metric tons, was <20 % of that in FY2018–2019 and only around
6 % of the exports in FY2016–2017. Among the finished goods, mainly
packaging products were exported, as shown in Fig. 3 (f). Bangladesh
is a net exporter of PP woven bags due to its simple low-investment
manufacturing process.
For export destinations, China accounted for almost half of
the total plastic exports from Bangladesh from FY2000–2001 to
2019–2020 (see Supplementary Material Fig. S6), mainly due to the
scrap export, with India in second place. As a member of the South
Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) and a Least Developed Country
(LDC), Bangladesh enjoys special tariff advantages with India. However,
the overall exports remained a fraction compared to imports, and
Bangladesh remains a net importer of plastic (see Supplementary
Material Fig. S7).
4.1.3. Discerning the material flows of plastics in Bangladesh for
FY2019–2020
The plastic budget for Bangladesh for the FY2019–2020 has been
quantified in this study (Fig. 4) and is described in the following
sections.
4.1.3.1. Import and export. More than 1.5 million metric tons of resins
were imported in FY2019–2020, while the import of finished products
was <5 % of the total import. As previously mentioned, the import
flows F1–F4, and the export flows F5–F8 were quantified from reliable
national and international databases. Therefore, among all the flows,
these flows exhibited the lowest dispersion or variance of 7 % in our un-
certainty calculation, indicating good data quality. Having reliable for-
eign trade data is particularly important since Bangladesh is fully
import-dependent on primary plastic and such data acts as a strong
foundation for this study.
S. Siddique, B.B. Roy, S. Zaman et al.
Fig. 4. Material flow analysis of plastics in Bangladesh for FY2019–2020 (all mass values are in metric ton).
4.1.3.2. Production and use. Packaging was the dominant use sector in the
country, accounting for 48 % of the product flow (see Supplementary
Material Fig. S8 for details on sectoral consumption). PET, PE, and PP
were the main plastic types used in this sector. Plastic packaging is
a major environmental concern, similar to other developing and de-
veloped countries where it accounts for 40–50 % of the total plastic
consumption (Mutha et al., 2006; Jiang et al., 2020; Di et al., 2021).
In second place is the deemed export flow of RMG accessories,
which accounted for 16 % of the country's plastic product flow.
Bangladesh is the second largest RMG exporter in the world
(Hossain, 2021), and approximately 92 % of the RMG accessories
are exported with the products. Therefore, despite significantly
influencing raw plastic consumption, its influence on waste genera-
tion is negligible. Information regarding the export of RMG accesso-
ries (F21) could not be collected from the national or international
databases. Hence it was collected through the field survey, which re-
sulted in a higher uncertainty score of 14 % as experts associated with
various stages and scales of the RMG industry were consulted with
naturally varying responses. Production of plastic building and con-
struction products ranked third, with a sectoral share of approximately
12 %. This reflects the rapid growth in urbanization and construction in
Bangladesh. PVC was the predominant plastic type used in the building
and construction sector. Among the country's plastic use sectors, the
least reliable data was for the healthcare sector due to a thick shroud
of secrecy and opacity, making data collection challenging, as men-
tioned in Section 3.5.1. Consequently, this sector had the highest data
uncertainty among the sectoral consumption flows.
In FY2019–2020, the domestic consumption (including recycled
plastics and excluding both direct and deemed exports) of plastic
in Bangladesh was 1,667,850 metric tons, equivalent to a per capita
consumption of 10.13 kg. The value was very negligible compared
to the developed countries; for example, the per capita plastic con-
sumption of Bangladesh for FY2019–2020 was <8 % of the per capita
consumption in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
708
Sustainable Production and Consumption 33 (2022) 700–715
countries back in 2015 (Wang et al., 2019). Fig. 5a compares per
capita plastic consumption in Bangladesh with other countries and
regions.
4.1.3.3. Net additions to stock. Among the eight-use process sectors, the
building and construction sector experienced the highest net addi-
tions to stock, which was 137,622 metric tons, expected due to the
longer lifespan of these products. The household products, tableware,
and kitchenware sector experienced the second-largest additions to
stock, followed by the furniture sector. These can be attributed to
Bangladesh's rapid economic growth, which translates to increased
purchasing power and demand for products.
4.1.3.4. Waste management. Bangladesh generated around 7.9 kg of
plastic waste per capita in FY2019–2020. It was relatively small com-
pared to developed countries - only about 6 % of that in the United
States back in 2016 (Law et al., 2020). Fig. 5b compares per capita
plastic waste generation in Bangladesh to that of some other coun-
tries and regions.
As explained in the following section, the informal sector works
uniquely well for Bangladesh to manage its non-packaging waste.
However, the packaging sector was the largest contributor to plastic
waste, accounting for around 73 % of the total waste generated by all
eight sectors. Within that amount, only around 19 % or 183,204 met-
ric tons (mostly PET bottles) got collected as scrap; and a staggering
754,038 metric tons of plastic packaging wastes was disposed of
openly to the environment during FY2019–2020. Uncontrolled burn-
ing of such openly littered packaging wastes, in particular polybags,
is prevalent widely across the country, which also causes significant
air pollution.
Various environmental problems such as waterlogging, deteriora-
tion of soil and water quality, visual pollution, and plastic deposition
into major water bodies are the direct consequences of open dumping
(Islam, 2019; Dhaka Tribune, 2021).
S. Siddique, B.B. Roy, S. Zaman et al. Sustainable Production and Consumption 33 (2022) 700–715

Fig. 5. Plastic consumption and waste generation across the globe: (a) comparison of per capita plastic consumption (Bangladesh in FY2019–2020 from this study; all other countries in
2015 from Wang et al., 2019) and (b) plastic waste generation (Bangladesh in FY2019–2020 from this study, all other countries in 2016 from Law et al., 2020). Underlying data for this
figure can be found in Supplementary Material Table S11.

4.2. Impact of the informal recycling sector on the plastic economy of
Bangladesh
4.2.1. Scrap flow through the informal plastic collection and recycling sector
(FY2019–2020)
A total of 370,318 metric tons of plastic scrap (including manufactur-
ing scrap) was collected for recycling during FY2019–2020, of which
90 % was processed by the informal sector based in Islambagh and
Kamrangirchar areas of Dhaka (Fig. 6), as mentioned in Section 3.5.2.
Unlike formal collectors and recyclers, the unregistered informal sector
businesses are not directly involved with importing and exporting
plastic scrap. They usually operate unsophisticated local machinery,
making recycled plastic susceptible to contamination and restricting
their use to low-quality and cheaper products. On the other hand,
only a few formal recyclers use modern technology such as washing,
extrusion, sheet and forming lines to produce food-grade recycled
plastics. During FY2019–2020, the formal and informal recyclers in
Bangladesh recycled 362,332 metric tons (F33 of Fig. 4) of plastics or
28 % of the total wastes generated by the use sectors of the country.
Fig. 6 shows that plastic scrap starts its journey at Islambagh and
Kamrangirchar through the scrap collectors, who sort the scrap and
cut them into flakes sold to dealers by counters who solely play the
role of being intermediaries. Our field survey shows Bangladesh's infor-
mal plastic collection and recycling sector is riddled with intermedi-
aries, with price hikes at each change of hand. Grassroots collectors,
who gather the scrap from the environment through tedious manual
labor, have no choice but to sell to intermediaries, which opposes
them from collecting lower value scrap (such as packaging wastes) for
the inadequate returns and demotivates recyclers from expanding
their activities for inflated prices. Intermediaries are the prime bottle-
neck for a mature recycling sector.
4.2.2. Plastic decoupling: lessons from developing countries
The OECD defines the decoupling factor as the difference between
the value of economic growth and the value of the environmental dam-
age done to achieve it (EUROSTAT, 2006). However, in this study, we
adopted the waste recovery-based definition of the decoupling factor
as defined in Rahman et al. (2019) and followed the methodology

Fig. 6. Scrap flow through the informal plastic collection and recycling sector at Islambagh and Kamrangirchar of Dhaka during FY2019–2020.

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S. Siddique, B.B. Roy, S. Zaman et al. Sustainable Production and Consumption 33 (2022) 700–715

presented there to calculate it (see Section 3.7). The key difference
between the OECD definition and the one by Rahman et al. (2019) is
that the OECD decoupling factor can be influenced by factors other
than waste recovery, such as improvement of efficiency in the pri-
mary production process, while the latter leaves much less wiggle
room for other factors to influence it. Fig. 7 (a) gives an overview of
plastic recycling efficiency in Bangladesh, highlighting three per-
spectives: waste generation, recycling, and loss. The plastic industry
of Bangladesh is an insignificant player in the world market due to
the minuscule plastic consumption, as shown in Fig. 5a. Still, the
recycling efficiency of Bangladesh is higher than many developed
and developing countries (Fig. 7a) - thanks to the vibrant informal
sector in Bangladesh.
In contrast, developed countries like the US either landfills or incin-
erates the bulk of their plastic scrap instead of recycling them, despite
having higher collection rates (Di et al., 2021) due to the inferior quality
of recycled plastics. Around 5 billion metric tons of plastic waste went
cumulatively into landfills and the natural environment worldwide by
2018 (Parker, 2018). On the other hand, plastic production in 2016
was at least 330 million metric tons (Lebreton and Andrady, 2019).
Therefore, if recovered, the plastic stock in the environment and land-
fills can substitute over 15 years of primary production at the rate of
production in 2016. With this viewpoint, as mentioned in Section 3.7,
we calculated the decoupling factor (Fig. 7b). Fig. 7b indicates that
Bangladesh has a higher decoupling factor (21) than all other countries
except India (26). Overall, developing and overpopulated countries in
Asia were found to perform better than developed countries (average
decoupling score of 19.5 vs. 13 for the developed countries in Fig. 7b)
due to higher levels of unemployment and poverty. However, it is es-
sential to understand with regards to the decoupling factor that the ex-
port of plastic wastes by developed countries to developing ones, a
common occurrence, hurts the decoupling score of the former, and
also causes global harm through burden shifting, lax laws and techno-
logical bottlenecks in developing countries. As both developed and de-
veloping nations share the same planet with shared responsibility for
resource decoupling, all countries should strive to recycle plastic scrap
instead of dumping it as waste into landfills.
4.3. Intensity of plastic use
We applied the concept of material use intensity to calculate the in-
tensity of plastic use in Bangladesh since this can be an indicator of the
state of materialization of this country. Fig. 8 depicts Bangladesh's plas-
tic use intensity between FY2000–2001 and FY2019–2020, along with
that of Austria, China, India, Japan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, and
the United States for different years based on the availability of

Fig. 7. Plastic decoupling across the globe: (a) comparison of the plastic recycling efficiencies of different countries and (b) sustainability of plastics across different countries (values of
decoupling factor for each country in parenthesis). Data source: 2000/2001 in India from Mutha et al. (2006), 2018 in Japan from Inoue (2018), 2010 in Austria from Van Eygen et al.
(2017), 2015 in USA from Di et al. (2021), 2017 in China from Jiang et al. (2020), 2013 in Thailand from Bureecam et al. (2018), 2004 in Poland from Bogucka et al. (2008), 1990 in the
Netherlands from Joosten et al. (2000), 2011 in Spain from Sevigné-Itoiz et al. (2015) Underlying data for this figure can be found in Supplementary Material Table S12.

710
S. Siddique, B.B. Roy, S. Zaman et al.
Fig. 8. Intensity of plastic use. Timeline: Bangladesh FY2000–2001 to 2019–2020. Japan 2015, Austria 2010, United States 2018, Trinidad and Tobago 2016, China 1978 and 2017, India 2000
and Thailand 2013. Data source: Wang et al. (2019) for Japan, Van Eygen et al. (2017) for Austria, Di et al. (2021) for US, Millette et al. (2019) for Trinidad and Tobago, Jiang et al. (2020) for
China, Mutha et al. (2006) for India and Bureecam et al. (2018) for Thailand, World Bank (2021a) for GDP (2010$). Underlying data for this figure can be found in Supplementary Material
Table S13.
secondary data. Detailed consumption-related data for Bangladesh
was unavailable for years other than FY2019–2020 (the result from
this study) since this is the first study of its kind in this country. How-
ever, since Bangladesh is a fully import-dependent country, we took
an indirect approach to estimate domestic consumption for the pre-
vious years. We calculated the ratio of imported plastic being consumed
domestically in Bangladesh from the results of our study, then used this
ratio on import data for the previous fiscal years to figure out the domes-
tic plastic consumption of those years. Coupled with past GDP data from
the world bank (2021a), this helped us calculate Bangladesh's intensity
of plastic use in past years. The intensity of plastic use for Bangladesh, a
developing country with around $1288 per capita income, was 7.94 g/$
in FY2019–2020; in contrast, Austria's intensity of plastic use was
3.32 g/$ in 2010, while its per capita GDP was $46,858.
For Bangladesh, an overall rising trend can be observed in tandem
with economic development but breaks in the pattern were seen during
the global recession of 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. As
countries develop, the intensity of plastic use decreases and takes the
shape of an inverted U curve if plotted over a sufficient duration of
time. The value for Bangladesh is also predicted to reach the levels of
the developed countries as it reaches similar levels of per capita income.
4.4. Future forecast and demand estimation of plastic in Bangladesh
The plastic industry of Bangladesh is growing so steeply (Fig. 9) that
the linear import growth (scenario A) quantity in FY2029–2030 is not
even half the amount forecasted by the BAU growth (scenario B). Only
doubling the proportion of recycled plastics as inputs for manufacturing
compared to the FY2019–2020 rate in the BAU state (scenario B), will
potentially substitute over two million metric tons of plastic imports
(scenario C) in FY2029–2030 for Bangladesh (Fig. 9). This singular inter-
vention will significantly benefit the country by reducing the foreign
currency requirement while preventing plastic waste from polluting
the environment. As such, our scenarios are echoed by a recent report
of World Bank which suggests additional policy guidance to achieve
similar targets (World Bank, 2021b).
4.5. Policy implications for the economy of the plastic industry in
Bangladesh
4.5.1. Existing policies and their limitations
Currently, no legislation exists to guide the plastic industry in
Bangladesh towards sustainability except the draft-in-progress (8th
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Sustainable Production and Consumption 33 (2022) 700–715
draft) policy titled “Plastic Industry Development Policy 2021”
(Ministry of Industries, 2021). Also, the existing laws and policies on
waste management cannot attain expected waste management out-
comes due to incoherence, loopholes, and lax implementation (Matter
et al., 2015; Devnath and Ahmed, 2020; Barua and Hossain, 2021). Antic-
ipating the growth of Bangladesh's economy and the plastic industry,
the World Bank has proposed several policy-related action plans with
short-, mid- and long-term targets stretching to 2030 (World Bank,
2021b). One important proposed target is “Reach a 50 percent plastic
waste recycling rate by 2025 and an 80 percent plastic waste recycling
rate by 2030 from the 2020/21 baseline” (World Bank, 2021b). Although
the World Bank report did not quantify any forecast amount, its target is
consistent with the future prediction scenarios (Section 4.4). The lack of
forecast amount in the World Bank report is at par with expectation, as
this paper shows in Section 2 that conducting an accurate MFA is diffi-
cult in the absence of reliable quantification of values in the plastic-
related literature for Bangladesh. This study forecasts that plastic con-
sumption in Bangladesh may reach about 6 million metric tons under
the BAU scenario by 2030. Therefore, attaining circularity warrants ad-
dressing the lack of policy support immediately for synergistic align-
ment of the plastic industry, waste management, and recycling sectors.
In 2002, Bangladesh became the first nation to abruptly ban the
production and trade of thin shopping polybags. Recently, banning
single-use plastics gained global momentum with implementation
in many countries (Eardley, 2021; Mohan, 2021; UNEP, 2020; The
European Commission, 2021; Queensland Government, 2021),
where, unlike Bangladesh, appropriate alternatives were made avail-
able alongside banning. Despite the availability of alternatives, in-
cluding bioplastics (Folino et al., 2020) and the jute cellulose-based
biodegradable Sonali bag (golden bag) (Akter, 2019), wide adoption
of alternatives is inhibited by their costs compared to general pur-
chasing power and special requirements for end-of-life biodegrada-
tion (Cho, 2021). The ban on thin plastic bags in Bangladesh still
exists. Yet, in the absence of suitable alternatives and the reluctance
of law enforcement to execute the ban, thin plastic bags reemerged
as more ubiquitous carry bags. The trade of these bags became an il-
legal business running under the nose of the regulators and became a
burning example of poor policy administration.
4.5.2. Policy recommendations for improving plastic waste management
by the informal sector
The informal sector, with a throughput of above 300,000 metric tons
during FY2019–2020, presents a dilemma as its internal economics
S. Siddique, B.B. Roy, S. Zaman et al.
Fig. 9. Future prediction of plastic imports in Bangladesh across four scenarios: A – linear growth; B – Business-As-Usual (BAU) based on the average import growth rate between
FY2000–2001 and 2019–2020; C – import requirement when the recycling rate is double compared to BAU; D – import requirement when recycling rate is double compared to linear
growth. Underlying data for this figure can be found in Supplementary Material Table S14.
discourages the collection of low-value but high-volume plastic packag-
ing wastes, which are the prime contributor to plastic waste-related en-
vironmental concerns in Bangladesh. Consequently, over three-quarters
of a million metric tons of packaging waste leaked into Bangladesh's
natural environment during FY2019–2020; between 120,000 to
310,000 metric tons of plastic waste reached the Bay of Bengal from
Bangladesh in 2010 (Jambeck et al., 2015). Furthermore, the expansion
of high-tech manufacturing in Bangladesh increased imports of com-
plex products leading to an increase in complex wastes necessitating
the emergence of adequate formal recycling capacities. Interestingly,
GDP growth in Bangladesh may promote plastic use while catalyzing a
decline in the informal sector by siphoning the workforce into secure
employment and negating the need for ordinary households to supple-
ment their income through the plastic scrap trade. It may lead to in-
creased leakage of plastic wastes into landfills and the environment.
Therefore, promoting formal stakeholders in the waste management
and recycling sectors by new recruitment and transition of informal
players should be a top priority. One way to achieve this is to aid
the informal sector in attaining a formal or a semi-formal status by re-
moving intermediaries since they are a bottleneck, as mentioned in
Section 4.2.1. Several approaches may be applied in this regard. Firstly,
formal but voluntary listing of informal sector recyclers by government
will assist estimation of the extent of informal sector to engage with
them for guiding them towards formalization besides creating a channel
to deliver supports. Secondly, training these people on efficient plastic
waste collection and segregation and the environmental aspects of
such wastes will also fuel formalization. Thirdly, the government may
provide subsidies, loans, and technical assistance to attract investors
to set up formal plastic recycling initiatives and expand existing ones.
The formalization drive will create a synergistic dual benefit system,
where informal entities formally registered with the government
would be allowed priority access to the market created by the new for-
mal initiatives. The latter will also be assured of a large and trained
workforce. Such a system may become self-sustaining if enough people
register and adequate number of formal initiatives are set up to elimi-
nate intermediaries effectively. Lastly, legal provisions should be in-
cluded in the plastic policy and legislation to protect the workers from
violence and harassment from intermediaries and to bring them
under a social security system.
712
Sustainable Production and Consumption 33 (2022) 700–715
4.5.3. Policy recommendations for improving plastic waste management
through community awareness and stakeholder engagement
The practice of reusing different metals and other products has been
an integral part of the Bangladeshi people's culture, especially for those
belonging to the lower and middle socioeconomic segments. At the
household level, source segregation and selling of recyclable scrap
should be heavily promoted as a community service along with being
a source of extra income to motivate people from all socioeconomic
groups including the upper class. Plastic related policies need to adopt
emerging circular economy concepts like the “circular premium” to
tap public's willingness to pay for sustainable products (Appolloni
et al., 2022; D'Adamo and Lupi, 2021). Further studies may help to un-
derstand the economic and sustainability benefits of products made of
recycled waste plastics and the consumers' willingness and affordability
to buy such products. Monetary and other penalties are prevalent in
many developed and developing countries. A pragmatic penalty system
needs to be instituted and strictly enforced to ensure adherence of the
people of Bangladesh to the rules of source segregation and littering.
Mass awareness and habitual changes needs to be made through the
television, internet, and print media to keep the environment clean
and utilize the waste management facilities such as segregated bins.
Considering the key stakeholders of the plastic industry as assessed
in this study, a stakeholder management plan should be developed for
the plastic industry defining the sustainability role of each stakeholder
and the strategies to engage, motivate and intensively manage these
stakeholders to act towards achieving plastic circularity in Bangladesh.
Similarly, collection and proper disposal of packaging and polybags,
even if commercially unprofitable, may be established as a required na-
tional necessity funded by tax or fees, and such taxes may be realized by
the local government along with utility bills. The prospect of converting
waste polybags to fuel at scale under the supervision of the authorities
should also be considered until the issue gets a sophisticated solution.
A cost benefit analysis for bioplastic considering the life cycle, environ-
mental and economic impact must be done by the government along
with the private sector. This will help to compare the cost benefit ratios
among alternatives like propagating bioplastics and paper as well as es-
tablishing industrial treatment or recycling facilities. Also, determining
the cost of collection and recycling of traditional plastic packaging to
determine the course of action is essential as the plastic industry of
S. Siddique, B.B. Roy, S. Zaman et al.
the country rapidly expands. Finally, without honest efforts from the
government and all stakeholders in transparent record keeping, data
sharing, policy making, and implementation, objective research will be
hindered since data is the driver behind pragmatic research for in-
formed policymaking.
4.5.4. Policy recommendations improving the existing practice in the
manufacturing sectors
Global trends and international policies may influence the plastic in-
dustry of Bangladesh, for example, in sourcing of raw materials for this
predominantly import-dependent industry. Taiwan and other plastic
exporters may decide to reduce their exports (Walther et al., 2021)
due to international treaties or agreements, such as the potential inter-
national plastic pollution treaty (Parker, 2021). The plastic RMG acces-
sories manufacturers in Bangladesh are already required to adhere to
stringent international environmental standards in their process flows
including waste recycling and handling of materials and wastes to com-
ply with the requirements of the buyers. RMG may inspire other sectors
as the local and global awareness rises in favor of achieving sustain-
able production and consumption (SDG12). With shortcomings in
infrastructure and a population not yet accustomed to unsustainable
consumption, Bangladesh can avail this opportunity to design inno-
vative sustainable systems ground up instead of having to retrofit a
pre-existing system. Moreover, assistance from developed countries
should be sought to transfer state-of-the-art green technology for
advanced manufacturing processes and packaging methods requir-
ing lower plastic inputs and producing a lower amount of waste.
4.6. Limitations of this study
Although this study methodically addressed the data limitations to
perform the first detailed national scale MFA of plastic for Bangladesh
for the FY2019–2020 period, performing a multiyear MFA for the overall
plastic industry of Bangladesh still remained a big challenge. Therefore,
this MFA may only represent the picture of plastic material flows of a
particular year, which may not be valid for a different year or over mul-
tiple years. Also, owing to the lack of continuous data availability, import
was forecasted using a single variable (i.e. historical import), although
import depends on consumption, recycling potential, and export. Fur-
thermore, linear regression oversimplifies the cause and effect relation-
ship between variables, potentially leading to a confusing assumption.
5. Conclusions
In this study, a plastic budget for Bangladesh was developed for the
Fiscal Year 2019–2020, following the principle of MFA. An extensive
analysis on imports and exports was conducted utilizing data collected
from two different entities (viz. UN Comtrade and NBR). The study
revealed a steady growth in the import of plastic in primary forms
alongside economic growth, while plastic export was found to have
a fluctuating trend. Hence, it explains the increase in plastic con-
sumption and the potential of the growing flow of plastics to the
waste stream in the future after finishing the products' lifespan.
Like most MFA studies conducted in developing countries, this study
also struggled with data availability, a lack of institutional documenta-
tion, and data reliability, specifically in illustrating sectoral plastic
flows and flows through the waste management stream. To overcome
this information hurdle, the study coupled secondary data with exten-
sive field surveys of critical stakeholders – including industry associates,
households, and waste handlers. Thus, through this endeavor, we were
able to narrate Bangladesh's story of plastic in intricate detail while
addressing possible uncertainties as well, a paradigm never achieved
for a developing nation until this study.
Sectoral perspectives of the plastic industry were quantified for the
first time in this country by this study, where the packaging sector
was found to lead both consumption and waste generation, assuming
713
Sustainable Production and Consumption 33 (2022) 700–715
negligible addition to stocks. The unique story of informal recycling, dis-
tinctive to the developing world, unfolded from this MFA, highlighting
the pivotal role of informal recyclers in the country's plastic industry
with a throughput of >300,00 metric tons of recycled plastic in
FY2019–2020. Despite Bangladesh lacking a formal recycling sector,
the country nevertheless possesses a recycling efficiency of 28 %, beating
many economically developed countries with explicit recovery indus-
tries. Such performance of the informal sector improved the plastic
decoupling performance (decoupling score of 21), indicating a formida-
ble circularity opportunity of plastics in Bangladesh.
Our MFA study on Bangladesh unveiled an expanding plastic
production sector with a substantial unevenness between imported
primary plastics and exported plastic goods. Such patterns highlight
high current stock and point to a compelling future prospects of plastic
recovery from waste through proper recovery strategies. Therefore, the
hint towards mechanical recycling activity requires a more formal
approach to handling waste to reduce leakage, a gap identified for infor-
mal recycling. Present ignorance in managing packaging waste leads to
a high accumulation of single-use plastic, causing a significant threat to
the environment and the sewage system.
As confirmed through scenario analysis, Bangladesh possesses great
potential for achieving a plastic circular economy, and sustainability ini-
tiatives suggested in this study will aid in steering the country towards
that. This would ultimately contribute towards achieving the key targets
of SDG12 through enabling sustainable and efficient use of natural re-
sources (target 12.2), reducing plastic waste generation through pre-
vention, reduction, recycling and reuse (12.5), encouraging plastic
manufacturers to adopt sustainable practices (12.6), promoting sustain-
able public procurement practices in the plastic sector (12.7), and
strengthening scientific and technological capacity to move towards
more sustainable patterns of plastic consumption and production
(12.a). Considering the findings of the current analysis, a lifecycle en-
vironmental and economic impact assessment of the plastic industry
is required to make well-informed decisions for securing the plastic
circularity in Bangladesh.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by a research grant (CTRG-19/SHLS/05)
of North South University. We are grateful for the cooperation of the
stakeholders and experts which made this study possible. Specifically,
we would like to thank the ready-made garments (RMG) and RMG
accessories industry, plastic product manufacturers, informal sector in-
cluding grassroots plastic scrap collectors and recyclers, formal sector
plastic scrap collectors and recyclers, and the Bangladesh Plastic Goods
Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BPGMEA) for their invalu-
able inputs.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.spc.2022.08.001.
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