Motivation 1 /3

 

 

 

 The Regulatory focus theory helps us to understand how individual focussing influences our decisions and actions. This works also in the field of waste management. I wonder whether Higgins already had the international exchange of goods from the waste sector in mind, as the two different types of Regulatory Focus Theory can be perfectly demonstrated here.

 

Let's focus on mixed plastic waste for recycling  that is shipped abroad as merchandise:

 

Example 1: A recycling company can sell this waste "for recycling” abroad because they may have better technical facilities or employ cheaper labour. It receives more money from the sale than if it separates the recyclable materials with its own resources and only has a few leftovers to dispose of. Promotion Focus! Its own idea of social responsibility ensures that no child labour or illegal disposal is involved.

 

Example 2: Another waste management company has also mixed residues left over in its recycling plant that are no longer suitable for RDF and which it would have to dispose of in a thermal utilisation plant at a high cost. With Prevention Focus he aims to avoid these costs and sells this "recyclable” waste to another company abroad without worrying about what happens to it there and whether there is at least a technical landfill site for the remainder.

 

For third parties it is not easy to recognise the difference. Legislators can dig deeper and ensure that it is not only waste that is traded and that the rights of the environment are protected. Standards for this already exist. One of them is for example the "ESM” covered in the Basel Convention:

 

ESM stands for Environmentally Sound Management. It refers to an integrated life cycle approach for addressing waste management. This approach involves strong controls from the generation of hazardous waste through its storage, transport, treatment, reuse, recycling, recovery, and final disposal. Essentially, ESM ensures that waste is managed in a way that minimizes environmental impact and promotes sustainability.

 

Dr. Sedat Gundogdu, a researcher in the Faculty of Fisheries at Çukurova University in Adana, Turkey in fact digged deeper.

 

In his book Plastic Waste Trade: A New Colonialist Means of Pollution Transfer the marine biologist, investigates plastic pollution across its entire life cycle.

 

Springer publishing house writes about this book:

 

"This contributed volume takes a holistic view of the international waste trade and in doing so argues that the transfer of plastic waste from mainly Global North to primarily Global South countries constitutes a form of 21st Century colonialism. The book first describes the history of the plastic waste trade, from toxic disasters in the 1970s and 1980s through the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal in 1989 through China’s 2018 implementation of a "National Sword” policy that effectively banned importation of plastic waste. From there, the authors explore both the legal trade in plastic waste and the underground illegal trade in waste, arguing that both lead to devastating impacts on ecosystems, workers, and communities in receiving countries and highlighting how countries that receive waste are often less equipped to process it than the countries that export waste. The last section of the book presents cases from countries on the receiving end of the plastic waste trade, highlighting inherent problems from sociological and environmental justice perspectives.”

 

I only heard about Prof. Gündogu yesterday and will research to his book in more detail.

 

There is certainly no direct extrinsic motivation for littering the sea with plastic and I am also sure that things are complicated. But should we really just watch , waste streams to continue to follow the path of greatest profit.

 

In the next newsletter (Motivation 2 / 3) I will focus on the motivation for Zero Waste

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