Future of Single Use Plastics – Conflict between Policy and Practices

Future of Single use Plastics – Conflict

between Policy and Practices
Anindya Pal

Polymer Professional

New Delhi

panindya1978@gmail.com

(Disclaimer: This article is based on secondary research only. No conflict of interest against any of the polymer or
petrochemicals manufacturing company as well as any government or private institutes.)

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”
Albert Einstein

Synopsis:
Governments around the world have taken key task to ban usage of single use plastics in
recent times. Central Pollution Control Board in India has identified certain Polypropylene,
Polyethylene, Polystyrene based extruded and molded products which have declared as ban.
Manufacturers have shifted towards the alternate solution like Polylactic acid (PLA) based
products, wood, paper, bamboo based products and alternate products are readily available
online & offline market format along with PP, PE, PS based products. Sensitivity analysis has
shown (Sustainability Assessment of a Single-Use Plastics Ban, Timo Herberz ,Claire Y.
Barlow and Matthias Finkbeiner, MDPI, 5th May 2020) that, PLA is worst performer in terms
of acidification, eutrophication, marine aquatic toxicity. Life cycle analysis of Paper, Wood
based products revealed that, renewable resource based products consumes more energy
that PP, PE, PS. The common perception that products made from renewable resources are
good for the environment is a partial truth and requires further qualification. Studies have
shown that, the plastics ban will lead to only a small reduction of global plastic marine
pollution and, thus, provides only a partial solution to the problem it intends to solve. The
inertia within the current economically and politically sustained system is such that, policies
which suggest reducing consumption as part of dealing with environmental crisis are edited
out, since these threaten business – as – usual ( Green Economics, Page 107, Molly Scott
Cato,2009). Green marketing and sustainable marketing solutions are always try to address
the conflict between business & environment with balanced approach. We can not decouple
consumer interest, market economics to satisfy our deep green approach as still we are
searching the right technology and product for mass consumption with green torch. In this
article we will discuss the global scenario of SUP in brief and will discuss the applicability of
sustainable marketing and green economy as probable solution.
Sustainable Marketing and Green economy:
Sustainable marketing strategies are inexorable in modern age business process (Trivedi
Krunal et al. 2018). Marketing Strategy changed its form, from embryo stage (pre 1974) to
ecological stage (1975-1989), to green marketing (1990 – 2000), to sustainable marketing
(post 2000) (Hristo Katrandjiev 2016). Sustainable marketing is mostly aimed to satisfy
customer’s need. Monolithic approach may create further disruption to ecology and it will

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address less towards GHG (green house gas) if we hesitate to conceive recycle, reprocess
& reuse concept at global level. Conventional economics focuses almost exclusively on
quantity, where as green economists are more concerned with the quality of human life. The
narrow focus on quantity at the cost of quality has brought us to a situation where we are
able to accumulate more and more things and yet these fail to bring us satisfaction. Green
economics critiques the concept of consumption. Green economics proposes a move away
from a focus on economic growth and towards a ‘steady-state economy’, which is the only
type of economy that can be sustainable in long term. Green economics suggests a whole
change of perspective in our attitude to resource use, one that can be portrayed as a shift
from the perspective of cowboy to the perspective of the spaceman. (Green Economics, Ch
1, Molly Scott Cato,2009).
World is moving towards bioregional economy. Beyond localization, the concept now
developing among green economics is that of a bioregional economy – an economy which
is embedded within its environment. Bioregional economics is therefore about reconnecting
with our local environment and having deeper relationship with the suppliersof our resources,
as a substitute for the thin nature of such economic relations within the globalized capitalist
economy. (Green Economics, Ch 9, Molly Scott Cato,2009).
In Indian industry context, manufacturers of SUP have participated in price competition by
ignoring the quality of product, value addition to the existing product. Increasing the weight
and thickness of SUP products have faced resistance from the end use market as sudden
price spike is unacceptable to the consumers. Also in India, we are silent about the active
participation of municipal corporations and their rag picking system. Mobility among
municipal corporations and allied institutes might help in effective waste management –
recollect, recycle & reuse.
What to discuss?
In this article, we want to discuss about the relevancy of Ban of Single use Plastics and role
of sustainable marketing as solution provider.
Single Use Plastic and global waste management scenario:
World’s most of the countries have a common syndrome ”Ban Single use Plastics (SUP)”.
We need to come out from Plastics Ban syndrome as Plastics are world’s most recyclable
material as far as material science is concern.
Global Plastics waste generation 300 mMTA at current level and will touch to 440mMTA by
2030. Plastics waste recycled only 10% at current level globally. Scope of Recollect -
Recycle - Reuse is high by adopting correct methodology and right eco friendly technology.
(RACE Asia – 'Recycling And Circular Economy' Virtual Conference,15th & 16th July’21)
Industrial symbiosis for circular economy need to be adopted. EPR – Extended Producers
Responsibilities still at 25% level at Europe and their target to reach at 50% by 2025 & 55%
by 2030. We can think Plastics waste as alternate energy generator considering not all the
plastics can be recyclable. Ban is not easy to execute, considering consumer behavior and
mass adoption of plastics packaging and disposables (RACE Asia – 'Recycling And Circular
Economy' Virtual Conference,15th & 16th July’21).

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Future of Single Use Plastics – Conflict between Policy and Practices

Plastics association to advocate for usage of plastics waste around 10 -15% in mix of bitumen
for road construction – has huge scope as current penetration level less than 5% (RACE Asia
– 'Recycling And Circular Economy' Virtual Conference,15th & 16th July’21).

Since last 3 decades, governments, NGOs have taken lots of initiative to ban single use
plastics which mainly consists of food packaging, and still struggling to achieve the goal
“BAN”.
Now a days single use plastics are conveniences to rich to poor, aged to young and touched
every nook and corner of our society at every moment. To address the disposal issue and
save mother earth from plastics pollution we need to educate ourselves.
NGOs and Government organizations have rolled out lots of awareness program across the
globe to streamline disposal habit for single used plastics but still far behind of target (Dirk
Xanthos et al. 2017).
Alternate non plastics products like paper, textile etc are not the solution as they consume
more energy to manufacture and emit more pollutants in environment. Biobased plastics
(PLA) also not a success story due to high input cost of feed stock(Sameer Joshi 2021) as
well as generation of toxicity.
Taxes already imposed on SUP bags but net effect not encouraging as authorities have failed
to implement the 100% Plastic Bag Ban policy at super markets, urban areas, shopping malls
(Sudarmo et al. 2020) in most of the countries. It is due to less availability of alternate bags
(Jessica L. Dalzell, 2019). We need to understand the SUP is used for cusumer’s
conveniences. It is adding value to the customers (Trivedi Krunal et al. 2018).
We investigated the influence of legislated SUP ban on customer’s green behavior, examined
in peer review papers about the effect of plastic tax on carry bags (Muhammad Shahid Khan
et al. 2020). We found that though customers adopted green behavior by reducing plastic
bag usage and started to use traditional bags like paper bag, cloth bag but could not
implement all across the globe.
In 21st century we are committing for net zero, so need to conserve energy. We can not go
back to paper bags, jute bags, cloth bags, wooden cutlery as these are generating more
pollutants in the environment during processing and consuming more energy against
plastics(Indian Center for the Plastics in the Environment,Prof A.K Ghosh, IIT Delhi, icpe.in).
In practical situation, few entrepreneurs have started to make bamboo based water bottle in
place of PET/ PP/ PE bottles but acceptability of same is limited even in developed country
because of price & performance (higher weight, inconveniences to consumer).
Proposed solution in view of Sustainable marketing strategy:
To successfully integrate sustainability vision with business mission, we need to incorporate
factors like innovation, collaboration, communication and commitment (Trivedi Krunal et al.
2018). Marketing needs to be rethought, remolded and renewed to ensure minimum damage
to the environment (Philip J. Kitchen 2020). We need to focus on scenario thinking which
analyses the relationship between: (Scenario Thinking, Page9, Geoge Wright & Cairns,
2011)
1. The critical uncertainties
2. Important predetermined trends
3. The behavior of stake holders

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Future of Single Use Plastics – Conflict between Policy and Practices

Sustainable marketing consists of environment marketing, green & societal marketing

(Trivedi Krunal et al. 2018). We need to adopt community driven approaches (Asphat
Muposhi et al. 2021) like voluntary initiative to apprise customers, citizens through school
children about limited use, reuse of Plastic carry bags, limited use of single use plastics (SUP)
like cutlery products. Along with that municipal corporations to arrange plastic waste disposal
system across cities and Medium & Small Scale Industry association to promote recycling
units nearby waste disposal areas and to promote products made out of waste plastics as a
part of circular economy. It will help urban areas to develop environmental citizenship
behavior (Asphat Muposhi et al. 2021) and help to reduce litter problem and plastics pollution
and will reduce micro plastics in sea water as well (Dirk Xanthos 2017). Also we need to
change the design of primary and secondary packaging to reduce usage of Plastics carry
bags.
As a solution we need to understand the gap between consumer demand and current single
use plastics design. Need to adopt sustainable marketing strategy considering factors like
innovation (change in packaging product / single use plastics product design / incorporation
of integral packaging design to reduce plastic litter and waste), collaboration (coordination
among municipal authorities for source segregation & plastics waste to wealth converter),
communication (clear communication about circular chemistry among school children and
citizens) and commitment (eco friendly green behavior). It will help to fill the gap between
usage of SUP and scientific disposal and reinvent new packaging solution at affordable cost.

References:
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2. Sustainable marketing strategies: Creating business value by meeting consumer expectation, Trivedi, Krunal;

Trivedi, Pooja; Goswami, Vandana; International Journal of Management, Economics and Social Sciences

(IJMESS)

ISSN 2304-1366, IJMESS, International Publishers, Jersey City, NJ, Vol. 7, Iss. 2, pp. 186-205

3. Consumer green behaviour: An approach towards environmental sustainability

2020;28:1168–1180. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2066

Muhammad Shahid Khan1 | Poramet Saengon2 | Amr Mohammed Nasser Alganad3 |Duangkamol

Chongcharoen2 | Muhammad Farrukh4 , 1College of Innovation and Management, Bangkok, Thailand,2Suan

Sunandha Rajabhat , University, Bangkok,Thailand,3University of Utara, Sintok, Malaysia, 4School of

Management and Economics,Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China

4. Beyond the Bag Ban: Voluntary Strategies for Reducing Disposable Bag Use in Athens, Ohio, Jessica L.

Dalzell, August 2019,

5. GREEN MARKETING COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES: AN INTEGRATIVE

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LITERATURE REVIEW, Mihai Stoica, Marketing Department, Faculty of Marketing, The Bucharest University

of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, The Annals of the University of Oradea. Economic Sciences, TOM

XXX, 1st Issue, July 2021

6. Ecological Marketing, Green Marketing, Sustainable Marketing: Synonyms оr аn Evolution оf Ideas?

Hristo Katrandjiev, Аssociated Professor, Ph.D., Marketing and Strategic Planning Department, UNWE, e-mail:

hristokat@abv.bg. Economic Alternatives, Issue 1, 2016

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Dirk Xanthos ⁎, Tony R. Walker, Marine Pollution Bulletin 118 (2017) 17–26

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