Mitigation Measures: ↓ Supply and Demand

Hello all!

Following up from the list of legislations I collated (recall: Table 1), I will elaborate about the mitigation measures over two blog entries and my personal thoughts.

↓ Supply

Mitigation measures such as taxing suppliers and prohibition of plastic manufacture and distribution aim to target plastic waste at the forefront of its life cycle, where manufacturers respond by reducing supplies when the quantity demanded by consumers fall. Examples include the Recycled Plastics Rules implemented by India in 1999 and the SB 270 implemented in the States where grocery stores and pharmacies were banned from distributing single-use carrier bags (defined as <40μm). Environmental groups backed these moves, although they sparked outrage from manufacturers arguing against it for weak reasons such as: a) jeopardise thousands of manufacturing jobs, b) does not help the environment, and c) line the pockets of grocery shareholders. 

I would refute opinions (a) and (c). Recyclable and reusable bag production create an alternative packaging market, fulfilling a positive brand image at the same time by exercising CSR as a strategic move. They are even provided with assistance in transition to greener production methods. Although the higher cost of recyclable bag production has controversially allowed large grocery stores (eg. Sainsbury) to cut costs by reducing their share to charity, I am in support. The stoppage in distribution of single-use carrier bags, the replacement with thicker 'Bags For Life', and one-for-one exchanges when the bags wear out - these create economic incentives for consumers to use and reuse their plastic bags, changing consumer behaviours with regard to thinner plastic bags over time. In my opinion, they are way ahead in this battle against plastic bags, compared to other stores that continue to charge for thin brittle plastic bags and justify it by donating the proceeds to charity.

For opinion (b), the manufacturers argued that the legislations were passed to affect them undesirably under "the guise of environmental stewardship". I argue that these bans were actually politically difficult to make for its unpopularity to businesses, as they affect not just the plastic bag industry but the entire retail scene by increasing their costs.

↓ Demand

A reduction in demand works through consumers, where they decrease their use of plastic through motivations such as saving money by avoiding the plastic bag charge. Using a case study from Portugal, a plastic bag tax saw a 74% decrease in number of used plastic bags and extensions on the life of reusable plastic bags for up to 2 months. There was a trade-off however, as there was a 12% increase in the purchase of garbage bags - overall, this is still likely to be in favour of the charge, as economic disincentives by a cost on garbage bags will control the purchase of plastic bags by consumers.

On many occasions, it is likely that a coupling of these approaches take place; there have been qualitative studies in Portugal where the implementation of the plastic bag tax has been cited to increase awareness of environmental problems related to plastic bags. It was also mentioned that there is room for improvement in forging a greater environmental identity by encouraging alternative bags, although I am ambivalent about this statement at present. I will explain why in the next post.

See you!

Introduction: Why Plastic Waste?

Hello all!

Having enrolled in the 'Global Environmental Change' module, I have chosen to zoom in the pertinent issue of plastic waste. Plastic pollution has increasingly received attention, owing to the growing accumulation of plastic waste that has materialised in the Great Pacific garbage patch. Based on the current consumption of plastic, plastic waste has been anticipated to increase by 10 times by 2025. Regionally, 8% of the manufactured plastic bags in the European Union are littered to the ocean, forming the bulk of marine litter.

Personal Thoughts

In my journey of blogging, although I will examine plastic waste and its impacts on the environment as a whole, I will focus disproportionately on plastic bags. This choice originates from the recent summer spent back home in Singapore, where I realised that consumer habits when it came to plastic bagging differed very much. I arrived in London the first time a mere 2 weeks before the '5p Plastic Bag Charge' was implemented on all single-use plastic carrier bags in large shops, which had me reducing my plastic bag use drastically. Incidentally, supermarkets in Singapore were in discussion to implement a similar move come 2018, to reduce the burden of plastic waste disposal on our only landfill. The news came as a pleasant surprise for me, especially as I had gotten used to living with less plastic in London.

Figure 1. Article on Singapore's highest-selling paper, The Straits Times, on the plans of implementing a plastic bag charge. But it certainly did trigger some angry reactions, as seen in the following 3 figures.

Figure 2. Angry netizen #1.

Figure 3. Angry netizen #2.

Figure 4. Angry netizen #3.

In my opinion, single-use carrier bags are commodities we could do with less - we could pay for one  reusable plastic bag, use free handmade tote bags, or even our school bags to store groceries. The only inconvenience is travelling around with a reusable bag, and unfortunately this inconvenience could outweigh our care for the environment, possibly due to an unawareness of the full impact on the Earth from plastic waste as seen from Figures 2, 3 and 4. These opinions made me realise that before implementation of industry-wide moves, it is first quintessential to encourage responsibility and care for the environment. In the following weeks, I will explore these thematic areas:

1. Life cycle of a plastic bag from its construction to its destruction.

2. Environmental, ecological and social costs of plastic waste (especially plastic bags).

3. Legislations around plastic bags and how to tighten these regulations.

4. Proposed alternatives: biodegradable plastics, paper bags, and recyclable bags.

*5. How will I respond to these Facebook comments?

I hope that my blog would positively reshape mindsets around plastic packaging to move towards a cleaner Earth. See you next week!