Plastic politics: industry stakeholders and the navigation of plastic control policy in India

ABSTRACT

The logic of neoliberal environmentalism, which pervades global environmental governance, assumes that consumers’ pro-environmental behavior and choices drive change through the market. The issue of plastic pollution has emerged as a major global environmental challenge in the last decade, and it has not been immune to neoliberal logics. Actors within the plastic industry have long attempted to deflect regulatory attention and public scrutiny by placing responsibility for recycling and appropriate disposal onto consumers. Despite these efforts, plastic control discourses have been gaining ground. In this article, through the case study of India, I argue that stakeholder responses to these discourses and to plastic control policies are affected by the internal dynamics of the plastic sector. Moreover, as a result of these inter-sectoral dynamics, anticipatory changes in the market can be driven by anti-plastic discourses.

KEYWORDS:

• Plastics
• plastic industry
• anti-plastic discourses
• plastic control policy
• neoliberal environmentalism
• India

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to all my interlocutors for their gracious participation, to Sanjeev and Sulabha Pathak for their help with the figure, and to Mark Nichter, the editor (Prakash Kashwan), and the anonymous reviewers for their comments on early versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. There is much academic debate surrounding the term ‘informal economy.’ It is difficult to draw boundaries between the formal and informal sectors, especially in the Indian – and indeed, Global South – labor context, where the two frequently overlap (e.g., Gill 2009). Nevertheless, the term is widely used to reference waste and recycling activities in India that are not part of municipal waste management services.

2. The pledge was thought to foreshadow a national ban on single-use plastics that was to be brought into force in October 2019; however, it was postponed first in response to an economic downturn and then, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The ban is now slated for 2022 (Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change 2021).

3. Speech by C. K. Mishra, Secretary of the Ministry of Forest, Environment and Climate Change, 8^th Speciality Films and Flexible Packaging Global Summit, August 2019.

4. Speech by Raghavendra Rao, Secretary of the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals, 8^th Speciality Films and Flexible Packaging Global Summit, August 2019.

5. 6^th Injection, Blow, Roto, and PET Moulding International Summit, July 2018.

6. EPR holds manufacturers or brand owners responsible for the management of post-consumer plastic waste and involves initiatives such as buy-back schemes.

7. Participant–observation during meeting at a large petrochemical company, December 2016.

8. Conversation with executive at a petrochemical company, August 2019.

9. 8^th Speciality Films and Flexible Packaging Global Summit, August 2019.

10. Plastic manufacturers and brand owners often align themselves tactically with the informal waste management sector, such as when arguing that plastic waste is crucial to the livelihoods of waste pickers or when highlighting recycling as a solution to the issue of plastic pollution. Nonetheless, the interests of the two sectors are seldom aligned, and they rarely work together in any meaningful, sustained, or organized manner.

11. Meeting with members of PACE, August 2017.

12. Meeting with executive at a large petrochemical company, January 2020.

13. Meeting with executive at a large petrochemical company, December 2016.

14. Meeting with employees at a large petrochemical company, August 2017.

15. Conversation with member of AIPMA, June 2019.

16. Conversation with executive at a large petrochemical company, June 2019.

17. As mentioned, not all environmentalists share the same priorities; the ‘environmentalist faction’ is no more a monolith than is the plastic industry. Reasons of space, however, do not allow for a full examination of the different positions within major anti-plastic environmentalist groups here.

18. Interview with member of Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, June 2018.

19. Interview with environmentalist, August 2019.

20. Interview with employee of WWF India, July 2017.

21. Interview with environmentalist, July 2017.

Additional information

Funding

The research for this article was supported by a Homi Bhabha Fellowship (2016–2018), awarded by the Homi Bhabha Fellowships Council, and the Aarhus Universitets Forskningsfond Ekstrapuljen grant.