A variety of goods, products, and packages made of plastic are for the most part non-biodegradable and much of the plastic waste that is a byproduct of modern life eventually ends up in landfills, streams and or in our oceans. It is estimated that in 2010 alone roughly 275 million metric tons of plastic waste and debris were generated in coastal countries globally and that ~5-12 million tons of it made its way into our oceans. The health risks and the ecological hazards that plastic waste inflicts on wildlife, wildlife habitats and humans alike, has already been well documented. Therefore, reducing the amount of plastic waste that ends up in the environment is a reasonable and worthy goal.
Successful reductions in plastic waste would advance multiple UN Development Goals at once and help to “protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all”. For example, the UN’s Global Goals for Sustainability has waste management spanning all 17 areas e.g., #9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure encourages recycling innovation to grow and be scalable and #14 – Life Below the Water encourages less plastic pollution in the oceans.
Yet despite the obvious and extensive reasons to increase plastic recycling and thereby reduce the accumulation of plastic waste products in the environment, stakeholders such as governments, environmentalists, and businesses have had limited success in reducing the amount of non-biodegradable plastic that ends up in the environment. In the United States, 94 percent of communities with populations above 125,000 have recycling programs available to them and 92 percent of the overall population have access to plastic bottle recycling. But despite the access and the availability of recycling in a developed country such as the US, only 6.5 percent of post-consumer plastic waste is recycled. Around 8 percent is burned to generate energy and the remaining 85 percent is discarded in landfills. Failure to properly recycle and/or reduce plastic waste are manifold: 1) Much of the plastic products being produced are not recyclable, 2) recycling is very costly and difficult and 3) individual consumers need to make an effort to sort their waste to make recycling possible.
Nor is the challenge of reducing plastic waste and debris a developed world problem alone. Developing countries are facing the same challenges, struggling with the ever-growing problem of plastic waste. Despite the bleak outlook, there are encouraging indications that government and business leaders are making efforts to stem the flow of plastic waste into our fields, streams and oceans. Companies like P&G, Danone and Unilever have set ambitious goals to make all of their packaging from recyclable plastics in the near future, and governments around the world continue to implement sustainable policies that aim to limit the damage that consumer preferences for plastic goods and packages can have on the environment.
The conscious efforts being made by governments and businesses will likely go a long way to reducing plastic waste in developing countries significantly. Yet this ability continues to be conditional upon the capacity/capability to recycle plastics when and where possible. Developed countries like the US and Europe will intrinsically be more able to commit to recycling a greater share of their plastic waste. On the other hand, due to the costs and difficulties involved in recycling, developing countries may not be as able to reduce the mountains of plastic waste that their burgeoning economies are generating. Drastic reductions to plastic waste in these countries will require a new kind of business innovation with a sustainable goal that can utilize plastic waste for more productive uses.
A potential innovation that has already seen some success is the use of plastic waste is infrastructure development, specifically in road and highway construction. Expanding the use of this financially viable and environmentally sustainable innovation has the potential to put plastic waste, which will inexorably continue to be produced in vast quantities, to productive use, and invariably keep it from polluting wildlife and human habitats.
The premise of the business innovation is that plastic waste can be collected, cheaply and easily shredded, and with little-to-no additional know-how and capabilities converted into viable structurally sound roads and highways. Roads built in India, using this method, cost around ~8% less to build than conventional roads, have longer life-spans and are more durable, requiring less upkeep over the lifetime of the road. A single kilometer of such roads uses the equivalent of 1 million plastic bags to construct, thereby making a real impact on accumulated plastic waste in local landfills. The durability and reliability of the roads also has the benefit of providing a more durable infrastructure solution in developing countries where sub-par roads and highways (ie: cracked asphalt, potholes, rutting and edge flaws) lead to a higher frequency of highway incidents and fatalities than on the relatively better maintained developed country roads.
Plastic roads also are able to withstand higher temperatures which make it a desirable solution in developing countries that are prone to heatwaves (think Sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia). Furthermore, the collection and shredding of the required plastics can provide much needed jobs for under-employed populations in low-income countries.
There already are a handful of companies and organizations that are working on similar and/or related business innovations, utilizing plastic for road and infrastructure development. Some companies in developed countries have developed advanced plastic road solutions that emphasize the quality and high-tech improvements of plastic roads over traditional roads: 1) The roads last longer (up to 3x longer), 2) They require 70% less time to install, 3) They are lighter and 4) They are made from recycled plastic.
However, these high-tech plastic road solutions tend to be more expensive than traditional infrastructure solutions. On the other hand, the model being employed in India, where 5000 kilometers of shredded plastic based roads have already been built, is a business model that is more likely to be scalable across the developing world. The low-tech, low-cost nature of the innovation, combined with the remarkable quality benefits that it generates make it a winning solution to combat plastic pollution in developing countries. The added benefit that it also leads to additional employment in the collection and shredding process makes it a solution that can have elevate the UN global development goals on multiple fronts: Reducing pollution, improving health and fighting poverty all at once.
Hence the business model we currently suggest would be focused on the developing world given that reducing plastic waste also helps generate job opportunities in the base of the pyramid. In emerging countries like India, most plastic shredders are women who buy subsidized shredding machines and sell their finished product for a small profit. Job creation for waste pickers and small entrepreneurs is an added benefit of the roads.
We see the potential of road building companies i.e., private enterprises both local and foreign with the ability to build such plastic roads profitably, coming into the market in India, especially given the increased press that this industry is now getting. For example, a Scottish start-up MacRebur recently beat 10,000 other companies to win the Virgin Voom competition and secured £1million and praise from Richard Branson for their idea on turning plastic into a revolutionary road surface. Furthermore, in India, late 2015, the mayor of Chennai announced the plastic road projects were being revived, triggered in part by the devastation to Chennai’s roads after the floods of 2015.
In November of 2016, the Indian government announced that plastic roads would be the default method of construction for most city streets, part of a multibillion-dollar overhaul of the country’s roads and highways. Urban areas with more than 500,000 people are now required to construct roads using waste plastic, a project that also has the approval of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, who has made “Swachh Bharat” (which translates to “Clean India”) a personal crusade.
Hence, further development and financial growth of the plastic road industry could have social/environmental impact on India and potentially form a feedback loop where the desire for corporations to partake in India’s pledge to improve its infrastructure will lead to more efficient, less costly forms of plastic roads, create job opportunities, and cleaner, healthier environments. Conversely, the subsequent environmental improvements and job creation could lead to more attention to/ demand for additional plastic roads.
All this said, the costs and risks of this innovation are that the long term environmental effects of plastic roads and highways are yet to be determined. If the roads are not properly maintained and or not properly built and installed, there is a possibility that the roads could deteriorate overtime and the plastic materials used in the construction of the road could eventually leak back into the ground, and ultimately pollute the land and/or water resources in the area.
Hence, in designing social and environmental sustainability goals tailored for the waste management industry given all the aforementioned issues, we focused on the fact there are already several initiatives launched by different companies, collaboratives, and countries within the plastic and waste management industries.
These global goals would not only pertain to and monitor global plastic creation, usage, and re-use but also have certain guidelines in regards to plastic roads in order to avoid these roads becoming pollutants themselves.
We would also create one global conference, with the backing of the UN and EU to bring all different players across the supply chain and across the globe to one event since there are several yearly plastic conferences divided by industry and region e.g., International Conference on Plastic Optical Fibres, International Plastics Sustainability Conference, and the EU conference on plastics to name a few; however, it seems that there is not one general event where all these different players can come and discuss such matters.
Hence, we would go one step further than the current industries by setting global standards and guidelines and would encourage that the UN create a separate 18th category under the Global Goals for sustainable development specifically for waste management. By having this additional category rather than having plastic waste management span several categories, specific targets can be set for the world and there would be at least one monitoring body for plastic usage and recycling globally.
Sources:
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/768
https://www.plasticroad.eu/en/
http://architectureau.com/articles/path-to-sustainability-plastic-roads/
https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/energy/energy-non-recycled-plastics-landfill
www.pof2017.org/about/
https://www.plasticpackagingfacts.org/plastic-sustainability/landfills-biodegreadability/
http://www.plasticsindustry.org/supply-chain/recycling-sustainability
https://wasteaid.org.uk/waste-sustainable-development-goals/
https://www.plasticpackagingfacts.org/about-plastic-packaging/mission http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/smallbusiness/article-4215302/Plastic-road-firm-MacRebur-refuels-Seedrs.html
Interesting post.
Have you considered writing about the pharma industry? I think it’d be fascinating to hear about the potential of shifting R&D and manufacturing to developing countries to address local diseases…
Cool blog! No questions for you but just wanted to add something that your blog made me recall – I believe in there is a company in Colombia that creates construction material from waste plastic and rubber in a form similar to Lego blocks. Then these are used to build houses for communities/individuals that need them, e.g. shelters for displaced people seeking refuge. It’s great to learn of such practical uses of waste plastic!