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

这个新的研究项目和奖学金的扩展将从人类学的角度进一步探索“循环塑料经济”的可行未来。这意味着可以最大限度地减少塑料废物，延长塑料的使用寿命，并且（生物）塑料可以有助于再生“自然”。该项目特别关注将社会正义和公正过渡原则纳入循环经济的定义，正如可持续发展的概念化已经发生的那样。它通过三个主题工作包来实现这一目标，这些工作包建立在最初的FLF基础上：生物塑料、社会塑料和公正塑料。生物塑料通常被废物政策圈认为是有问题的，因为它们很难堆肥，而且容易污染传统的塑料回收流。然而，它们受到可持续商业界的欢迎，并继续增长。这个工作包结合了民族志研究与生产商的两种不同的生物塑料包装形式的制药工业与历史研究的辩论和争议周围的原始生物塑料（酪蛋白，parkesine，玻璃纸）和他们的替代品与全合成聚合物在二十世纪。因此，一系列的材料，目前正在辩论的一个有限的范围内的行为者在生产阶段的兴奋和挫折方面的处置将受益于一个微妙的人种学研究和从长远的历史角度。Social Plastics探索合作社、社会企业和非营利组织的社会经济与塑料循环经济的交叉方式，确保弱势群体的重要作用，以及对社会和环境负责的方法。具体而言，这一系列比较了阿根廷和古巴的塑料拾荒者合作社，试图了解拾荒者向塑料价值链上游移动的障碍以及如何克服这些障碍。通过对成功案例的研究，其他国家的拾荒者将受益于对这些问题的人类学关注。塑料包装生产商的更广泛的商业界也将受益，他们希望确保从拾荒者那里定期供应回收塑料，同时保障他们的人权。与邓迪的新苏格兰塑料集体合作，将确保寻求最大限度地减少塑料污染的团体之间的南北知识交流，同时为贫困和弱势群体提供体面的工作。Just Plastics关注塑料垃圾拾荒者在联合国环境规划署塑料污染条约中发挥的作用，以及他们如何被纳入解决塑料污染的国家行动计划。在本工作包中，研究小组将研究南非的案例，南非是环境署拾荒者之友小组的主席，在拾荒者的参与和保护方面，该国的废物政策最为先进。还将与“零废物苏格兰”合作开展一项补充研究，探讨苏格兰在预期具有约束力和自愿性的条约目标时可采用的各种政策选择，确保这一工作方案具有南北比较的特点。除了国际拾荒者组织和政策制定者之外，环境署秘书处本身也将是这一一揽子计划的主要受益者，因为它将提供世界领先的关于拾荒者在塑料回收和减少塑料污染方面的作用的社会科学研究，补充在这一领域占主导地位的自然和化学科学知识库。

This renewed research project and fellowship extension will further explore the viable future of a 'circular plastics economy from an anthropological perspective. This means the way in which plastic waste can be minimised, the useful life of plastics can be extended, and (bio)plastics can contribute to regenerating 'nature'. The project has a specific interest in integrating social justice and just transition principles into definitions of the circular economy, as already occurs with conceptualizations of Sustainable Development. It does so through three thematic work packages that build on the original FLF: bioplastics, social plastics, and just plastics.Bioplastics are often considered problematic in waste policy circles, given the difficulty with which they are composted and their tendency to contaminate conventional plastics recycling streams. Yet they are heralded by the sustainable business community and continue to grow. This work package combines ethnographic research with a producer of two different bioplastic forms of packaging for the pharmaceutical industry with historical research into the debates and controversies surrounding the original bioplastics (casein, parkesine, cellophane) and their replacement with fully synthetic polymers during the twentieth century. Thus, a range of materials that are currently are debated by a limited range of actors in terms of excitement at the production phase and frustration with regards to disposal will benefit from both a nuanced ethnographic study and from a long-lens historical perspective. Social Plastics explores the way in which the social economy of cooperatives, social enterprises and non-for-profit organisations intersects with a circular economy of plastics, ensuring an important role for underprivileged actors and an approach that is socially as well as environmentally responsible. Specifically, this strand compares plastics wastepickers cooperatives in Argentina and Cuba, seeking to understand the barriers to wastepickers moving up the plastics value chain and how they can be overcome. Through research into successful case-studies, wastepickers in other countries will benefit from an anthropological focus on these issues. The wider business community of plastics packaging generators who want to ensure a regular supply of recycled plastics from wastepickers whilst guaranteeing their human rights will also benefit. A partnership with a New Scots plastics collective in Dundee will ensure South-North knowledge exchange between groups seeking to minimise plastic pollution while providing decent work for underprivileged and vulnerable groups. Just Plastics focuses on the role that plastics wastepickers are playing in the UNEP plastic pollution treaty and how they are being included in national action plans to tackle plastic pollution. In this work package, the research team will look at the case of South Africa (TBC), chair of the Friends of Wastepickers group at UNEP and a country with some of the most progressive waste policies with regard to the involvement and protection of wastepickers. A complementary study will also be carried out in collaboration with Zero Waste Scotland that will explore the range of policy options available to Scotland in anticipation of the binding and voluntary treaty targets, ensuring a comparative North-South dimension to this work package. As well as international wastepicker organisations and policymakers, a key beneficiary of this package will be the UNEP secretariat itself, since it will provide world-leading social scientific research on the role of wastepickers in plastics recycling and reducing plastic pollution, complementing the natural and chemical science knowledge base that predominates in this sphere.