Victor's Blog

Individual report – Garbage patch-work

When buying items for human consumption at the supermarket, these are often packaged in low-density polyethylene. Only about one third of this produced waste is currently recycled while over one billion m² of LDPE foil ends up in the oceans every year where it slowly but not fully degrades and massively endangers marine life (EU Commission, 2018; Bishop et al., 2020). From a spatial planning perspective, the plastic issue becomes rather complex, with many factors in need for improvements and policies that could be adjusted. In the main approach worked out by our group, banning LDPE films in forms of (vegetable) bags, and on food packaging, the consumer is confronted with its behaviour, and alternatives need to be supplied. Whilst secondary measures for managing recycling flows pose great challenges, promising pollution reductions can be expected.

To this end, awareness campaigns, signs and informational websites provide institutional instruments in order to inform citizens of the planned change and why such is useful and necessary. Despite being potentially the weakest of the policy instruments the authorities may oversee, since no direct force is in place for any action, rather suggesting such, it may have significant long-term effects. The consumer is only demanding non-seasonal products imported from overseas—which for transportation purposes needs to be packed in plastic—since we are used to this behaviour. However, if these expectations change, upcoming generations are raised with an increased sense for sustainability, and limits are set to globalization and long transport ways, the supply chain will consequently adapt, and a natural correction of produced LDPE amounts can be expected.

Transportation and infrastructure planning will act in correspondence to this changing consumer behaviour and facilitate development towards carbon-neutral cities. Urban agglomeration is desirably kept as compact as possible in order to reduce energy consumption (Jenks et al., 2004). The nearby satellite towns are placed in a strongly connected network aiming for regional self-sustainability without massive imports of goods and exports of waste. In the central metropolitan transport hubs, recycling facilities will strategically be placed, scattered all around Europe, ensuring large catchment areas. Increased research efforts are needed, particularly from an economic geographical point of view when deciding on such locations. Further, technological innovation will play a key role in the success of future recycling strategies. Private-public partnerships are therefore of high importance to ensure a smooth implementation of the integrated full-industrial scale waste-to-resource recycling/upcycling approach which Attero developed in order to process municipal solid waste efficiently at only one location.

Moreover, market-based policy instruments enable the authorities to provide additional financial incentives for companies which produce less LDPE (waste) and make their products available cheaply despite a potentially higher production cost. Once again, particularly increased financial support for research in alternative packaging solutions will lead the development in the right way.

However, the legislative instrument is still vital in achieving the desired outcome. Despite other means helping to create an integrated policy approach, a clear directive on EU level with every member state being responsible for the implementation of the unified goal of producing 60% less LDPE is necessary. The current directive already banned other single-used plastics in 2020 (EU, 2019/904), consequently making unnecessary LDPE in food packaging and bags hopefully easily adopted into this legislation. Such directive, at least in the Netherlands, then trickles down to the municipalities executing these plans, who are also responsible for municipal solid waste, and can therefore execute the proposed solutions systematically. The fines for not achieving the agreed goal obviously need to provide strong incentives for an actual change in production.

Regarding litter in the marine environment, mismanaged waste is the largest contributor (Bishop et al., 2020). While this is not necessarily a problem that happens within the spatial scale of Europe, producer countries need to be held responsible for waste which is exported and eventually polluting the environment, even though it may not be on their territory anymore. As Bishop et al. (2020) point out, improving domestic separation and collection efficiency of LDPE waste, particularly on municipal level, is not correlating with reduced ocean debris, since amounts of waste exports are still trending upwards. Consequently, the presented Attero solution is solving the actual problem only to a very limited extent and may solely be effective if coupled with other measures. Due to China’s recent ban on plastic waste imports, the problem is amplified making other developing countries in South-East Asia with laxer environmental regulations likely to become the new “pollution haven” (Qu et al., 2019; Kellenberg, 2010). The waste is even more likely to litter the environment in such states with obsolete sewage systems and a different mentality towards pollution. As can be observed in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (1943), people’s first concern are the basic needs, and as long as these are not fulfilled, higher concerns (about environmental pollution) are placed secondary. Smart spatial planning and design solutions in these regions may facilitate favourable developments in the future to control urban growth and establish sustained economic prosperity.

This problem is very wicked, and a solution is multi-faceted, aiming at reducing production through consumer behaviour and imposed laws while improving recycling efforts on a European scale with promising technological innovations. Additionally, this may only seriously decrease the problem of ocean litter when coupled with stricter regulations on waste exports, demanding transparency and responsibility of tracking the final fate of our LDPE, ensuring correct management and recycling.

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