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Torik Holmes and Christina Picken discuss the troubling role played by powerful ideas of the consumer and demand with regard to tackling plastic problems.

There is no doubt that plastics are a matter of growing societal concern. Changes are afoot. Though well intentioned, these are haunted and limited by dominant ideas of consumers, related expectations and preferences. In many cases, these ideas act to limit the scope and scale of sustainable transitions. There’s a great deal of complexity here, with multiple consumers, producers and related sustainability challenges at play. In what follows, we provide several practical examples that inspired this piece of writing and our call to bring ideas of the consumer into question as part of challenging problematic norms and standards.

A quick note on plastics

In short, plastics are made up of polymers. Polymers are ‘any of a class of natural or synthetic substances composed of multiple, simpler chemical units called monomers’, which are linked together chemically into long chains. Nature is filled with polymers, from wool to wood, to spiders’ webs and human hair. Every protein in our body is a polymer, with amino acids comprising the smaller monomer units. The synthesis of polymers from monomers with non-natural structures creates what are commonly termed synthetic plastics. Depending on the combination and arrangement of monomers, the form, function, and the effects of synthetic plastics change. Plastics refer to the final material once all other ingredients and additives are added. When considering the sustainability of plastics, polymer chains demand scrutiny. Changing or substituting monomers alters the material composition and properties of synthetic plastics. The creation of more sustainable plastics involves understanding, designing, and delivering such alterations.

The constraints of cleanliness

We encounter a variety of “hidden” polymers day-to-day. Domestic liquids, including, for example, shampoos, toothpastes, washing up formulas, detergents, paints, and glues, all contain a variety of polymers. These improve performance: thickness, texture, mixing, and visual appeal. Many of the polymers used are synthetically derived and are not sufficiently degradable, making their inevitable journey into water streams concerning. In response, many companies, such as Unilever and Croda are working to improve the biodegradability of certain polymers and products through the reformulation of everyday products. This is not an unrestricted exercise. Firms see it as crucial that consumer expectations of product performance are adhered to, achieving matched or improved performance and cost, while rates of degradation are improved and negative downstream effects are negated. In practice, alternatives to shampoos and body washes, for example, not only need to be more sustainable in terms of how they break down, but they must also remain thick and glossy in order to stay attractive, easy to handle, measure out, and foam up. It is in this regard that the details of contemporary consumer demand act to limit the parameters of material substitution and ultimately sustainable transitions. The very contemporary nature of such demand suggests, intriguingly, that consumers are not necessarily as stubborn as suggested. Shampoos were introduced in the 1930s, the addition of polymeric ingredients born in the 1960s, and the concept of regular hair washing in the 1970s. Indeed, not so long ago, soap was king. Before this, water baths and scented olive oils were popular within, for example, Greek and Roman communities.

The price of clarity

Shifting focus to plastic packaging, we see again how ideas of the consumer and consumer demand shape the contours of sustainable interventions. Plastic bottles (commonly made of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) in the case of drinks and High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) with regard to shampoo and bodywash bottles) are prime examples of recyclable materials. Regional differences accepted, these plastics are commonly gathered at mechanical recycling plants, melted and extruded into recycled plastic pellets that can be fed back into systems of production. Despite claims to the otherwise, extrusion is not a zero-sum game – the material qualities of plastics are inevitably changed and distorted during the process. Indeed, process driven degradation is an inevitable side effect of plastic extrusion. Whilst additional treatments and research can be undertaken to reduce this, it is accepted that recycled feedstocks can cause discolouration of the product as well as reducing material performance. In effect, these qualities can make recycled feedstocks less attractive than fossil fuel derived virgin polymer alternatives due, in part, to expectations concerning product aesthetics. The effects matter more in certain markets than they do in others. With regards to bottles for colourless solutions (e.g. water), hue and transparency are highly valued. This is because it is understood that consumers do not want to drink from cloudy receptacles. As a result, many manufactures are careful not to use too discoloured or simply too much recycled content for fear of muddying mixtures, inhibiting the perceived quality of consumables, deterring consumption, and limiting sales.

The balancing of expectations of consumer expectations and the use of more sustainable recyclable materials is seen in the prices paid for recycled feedstocks. Since 2022 and the introduction of the Plastic Packaging Tax, companies involved in placing more than 10 tonnes of plastic packaging on the UK market annually, which ‘does not contain at least 30% recycled’ content, are subject to a tax. Initially, a £200 per tonne tax was applied. This saw large-scale drinks manufacturers hoover up sorted clear and light blue PET – the material that is ‘cleaner’ to mix with virgin polymers and produces higher recycled plastic with stronger mechanical properties. As a consequence, a tonne of ‘clear and light blue PET bottles’ went from trading in January 2021 for between £140 and £185, to between £390 and £440 in 2022. Less desirable ‘coloured’ – also known in the industry as ‘jazzy’ – PET bottles garnered much less. As of January 2022, material recovery facilities (MRFs) and plastic recovery facilities (PRFs) were paying up to £20 a tonne for these to be taken off their hands. While performance related issues play a role in producing these differences in price, perceived consumer preferences also impact markets for recycled content, helping to make some waste streams more attractive and valuable than others. In effect, demand for clarity acts to inhibit recycling and circularity, by making it more likely that certain plastic recyclables will be spat out of circulation and burnt as part of energy recovery or discarded in landfill.

Troubling demands for absence

As problems with plastics recycling have been highlighted through research, media and policies, the sentiment that plastic packaging is just downright bad has grown considerably. This is particularly evident in the statements of absence outlined on packaging that looks, feels, sounds, and moves like plastic but makes claims to the contrary, shouting: “I’m not plastic!”. More often than not, however, such statements are less definitive than they suggest. Typically, carrier bags that make the above claim are made primarily from poly(lactic acid) or similar derivatives. This is an alternative to its predecessor polyethylene and is often made from corn starch, rather than fossil fuels. Technically, poly(lactic acid) or similar derivatives are biodegradable owing to their chemical composition, although there’s a caveat – only when heated to high temperature in acidic environments for more than 6 months. With insufficient UK infrastructure to meet these requirements, councils generally don’t want biodegradable plastic bags in with food waste collections. They also tend not to want them in plastic recycling collections because, while they are polymeric, they are difficult to sort from other plastics and thus contaminate other streams of recycling. For such materials, beyond reuse, incineration or landfill are the best, albeit controversial and problematic options. The more pertinent point here is, however, that as part of responding to and feeding into consumer fears over plastic, issuing companies have pumped bags (as well as a myriad of other “sustainable” single use items) into circulation that arguably do more harm than good as they are neither recyclable nor widely compostable and instead contribute to environmental pollution and harm.

Challenging the consumer

It is clear that plastics carry many utilities, benefits and concerns. The consumer, not so much king, as ghoul, haunts attempts to abate the latter. Based on this, it becomes all the more important to bring into question accepted needs and to spotlight the results of continuing to deliver on these. After all, there’s broad agreement that we cannot continue “business as usual”. Producers could take a stronger lead here, challenging problematic practices of consumption, rather than helping to reproduce them. We’re not naïve here to the profit motive – another influential spirit. This too, along with its consumer counterpart, needs to be confronted as part of facing down the ghastly ghouls wrapped up with plastics production and consumption. We’re of mind here to remember that the spectres of the consumer discussed, be these to do with beauty and cleanliness or on-the-go consumables, are really not very old and perhaps less scary, all knowing, and obstinate than they appear.

Acknowledgment
This piece was inspired by interdisciplinary conversations between the authors and fellow colleagues at the Sustainable Materials Innovation Hub, those working on the Sustainable Futures Platform, and those involved in the One Bin to Rule Them All Project (NE/V01045X/1). We thank those colleagues for their thoughts and perspectives. Additional thanks go to Dr Daniel Welch and Tanya Solovey for comments on an earlier iteration of this piece of writing.

Authors

Dr Torik Holmes is a social scientist and Hallsworth Research Fellow with a focus on business engagement and impact. He is interested in how demand for resources and services are configured and held in place. Torik is currently researching the varied politics of consumer plastic packaging as a means of exploring why recycling remains a persistent problem and where opportunities lie to improve matters. To learn more about this work see the project webpage.

Dr Christina Picken is a chemist and post-doctoral research associate at the Sustainable Material Innovation Hub. Her research investigates sustainable degradable polymers for liquid formulations, and embedding sustainable practices into research endeavours.

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