Ebner Norman, Iacovidou Eleni
Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom.
Division of Environmental Sciences, College of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Brunel University London, Kingston Ln, London, Uxbridge UB8 3PH, United Kingdom.
Sustain Prod Consum. 2021 Oct;28:726-735. doi: 10.1016/j.spc.2021.07.001. Epub 2021 Jul 6.
The plastic system is burdened with many inefficiencies that have been exposed, and exacerbated, by the outbreak of the coronavirus (SARS-CoV2) pandemic in December 2019, widely known as COVID-19, and which threaten society's commitment to transition to a sustainable plastics economy. This perspective aims to depict the structural and systemic inefficiencies of the plastics system, and illuminate: (a) the vulnerability of the recycling sector to macroeconomic - particularly to oil price - shocks; (b) the economics of the recycling system; (c) the political dimensions of the plastics sector. It emphasises that is unwise to think about plastics recycling as an insular and linear problem, due to the complexity and interconnectedness of different parts of the plastic system that affect and are affected by the intertwined processes, stakeholders and values. That said, the transition to a sustainable plastics system requires an integrated, knowledge-based systems approach that interrogates the dynamics and causal-effect relationships of the interconnected challenges. This analytical scrutiny can indicate where interventions are needed in the plastics system towards creating transformational change.
塑料系统存在诸多已暴露的低效率问题，2019年12月爆发的冠状病毒（SARS-CoV2）大流行（即广为人知的COVID-19）使其进一步恶化，这些问题还威胁到社会向可持续塑料经济转型的承诺。本观点旨在描述塑料系统的结构和系统性低效率，并阐明：（a）回收行业易受宏观经济冲击，尤其是油价冲击的影响；（b）回收系统的经济学原理；（c）塑料行业的政治层面。它强调，由于塑料系统不同部分的复杂性和相互关联性，这些部分通过相互交织的过程、利益相关者和价值观相互影响，因此将塑料回收视为一个孤立的线性问题是不明智的。也就是说，向可持续塑料系统的转型需要一种综合的、基于知识的系统方法，该方法要审视相互关联挑战的动态和因果关系。这种分析性审查可以指出塑料系统中需要进行干预以实现变革性变化的地方。
