Sustainability Strategies and Issues: Plastic Collective Case Study

This report analyzes the sustainability strategies and issues based on the Plastic Collective case study. It discusses the importance of Plastic Collective in Australia and internationally, as well as the sustainability practices and strategies implemented by the company. Recommendations for future strategies are also provided.

SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT
& MARKETING

Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Background of Plastic Collective...............................................................................................3
Importance of Plastic Collective in Australian and the International Context...........................4
Sustainability Related Issues......................................................................................................5
Sustainability Related Strategies................................................................................................5
Sustainability Practices of Plastic Collective.............................................................................7
Strategic Implementation...........................................................................................................7
Conclusion/Recommendations...................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

Introduction
Every year more than 8 million tons of plastic flow into the oceans, this requires immediate
actions to be taken to prevent the oceanic life from getting affected. This report presents the
analysis of sustainability strategies and issues based on Plastic Collective case study. The
report also evaluates the management functions and provides recommendations to resolve the
issues (Australian Government, 2016). The report is being prepared to draw attention towards
the fact that Plastic Collective has been an innovative start-up whose aim is to deal with
waste pollution issue in the remote islands. There are such machineries in the company which
enables conversion of disposals into various useful products such as roads, baskets, bags and
many others. Various sustainable strategies are applied by the company for waste
management which include zero waste concept, incineration, and 3R program. Plastic Waste
management is of huge significance in protecting the environment because there are many
serious issues caused due to plastic contamination. Plastic Collective has been a
representative example in waste demolition as well as in generating income through such
disposals. This report will discuss about the issues being faced by the organization along with
the sustainable strategies to resolve them. Also, managerial theories and its effect will be
discussed followed by some suggestions on future strategies.
Background of Plastic Collective
Louise Hardman established Plastic Collective in 2016 by and it’s headquartered in Coffs
Harbour, New South Wales in Australia, which is a pro-environmental initiative with an
objective to prevent the plastic waste being thrown in the oceans by people. The director of
the company derived this business idea when she witnessed the painful death of a small turtle
because of eating plastics shielded in the seagrass. Louise developed an idea to create the
value of such plastics thrown in oceans and to get income from it instead of eliminating them.

She created this business concept based on principle that “if something has value, it no longer
becomes rubbish”.
Importance of Plastic Collective in Australian and the International
Context
In the context of Australia, this private company is making lots of contribution in making
people of Australia aware of the pain experienced by marine life because of plastic disposal.
The initiative taken by the company in 2016 has now become a huge program inclined
towards preventing the oceanic life from getting affected due to plastic waste being thrown
by people in oceans.
In the international context, Plastic Collective is aiming to bring Shruder program for
Mantanani Island, Reef Check Malaysia in sponsorship of Coca-Cola. Reef Check have been
contributing in establishing a reprocessing facility over the island. Through glass crushing,
plastic bottle balers as well as plastic shredding and remoulding, shruder machine ensures the
safety of reefs from plastic discharge and is contributing a lot to the continuing health and
recovery of the reefs.
Similarly, the Tempat Pembuangan Sampah Terpadu (TPST) or Waste Management Facility
in Les Village is also experiencing alteration into a village level plastic reprocessing and
upcycling educational centre. To achieve the purpose, the creation of a machine room
includes the shruder, plastic shredding, as well as extruding machine (Rochman, 2016).
The shruder program attracts the royal interest because it is a mechanism which scraps and
extrudes oceanic plastic into usual objects. It has attracted huge international interest from
various aspects because the company is contributing a lot in preventing the disposal of plastic
waste in oceans (Plastic Collective, 2019).

Sustainability Related Issues
In the Asia-Pacific region, there are more than 4000 populated islands where more than 370
million people reside on average earning of $5000/year. In addition to it, there are no
effective waste collection services in these regions so, plastic wastes are usually burnt,
dumped or buried often ending up in various water resources such as in seas or oceans. With
more than 8 million tons plastic waste thrown into seas and oceans every year, there are
various problems being tackled by the remote as well as populated islands throughout the
Asia-Pacific region (Plastic Collective, 2019).
In context of various stakeholders, the major sustainability related issues being faced are:
 Lack of collection and infrastructure in remote communities - In remote
communities, there is no arrangements for collection of waste due to high
transportation costs and absence of effective waste management infrastructure.
 Community health and safety issue - The common preparation of burning plastic
wastes has severe negative health problems for people. In addition, the removal of
plastic wastes encourages unhygienic conditions and increase risk of plastics being
consumed by marine animals causing their untimely death (Geyer et al., 2017).
 Impact on wildlife and habitation - The transfer of plastics from land to sea causes
huge effect on marine life and habitats that destroys reefs, fishing communities as
well as entire marine life. Along with it, coastal livelihoods are also affected wherein,
communities depend on fishery industries for occupations and sustenance.
Sustainability Related Strategies
The aim of Plastic Collective is to decrease waste plastic in a considerable manner in remote
communities, authorize people to identify new financial prudence for their communities and

to distribute highly advanced tools, apparatus and training for all the people or groups who
are in need (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2016).
In context of the problems being faced by stakeholders, Plastic Collective has various
opportunities to lessen plastic waste which include:
 Go Local - To work within their community to increase capitals to start program
through micro-financing, benefactors, fund-raining or grants. In order to resolve the
issues of unawareness among people, fund raising in the name of prevention of
marine life from getting extinct, could be beneficial because the majority of coastal
livelihood rely on fishery business. When there will be proper waste collection and
waste management techniques available near the coastal areas, people will become
use to dump plastic wastes in waste collectors (Trucost & Ocean Recovery Alliance,
2016).
 Become a Partner- To support a community group that has been involved in raising
funds to get started with a part donation is also a beneficial technique. There are
various non-profit and private organizations that are operating for the welfare of
marine life. Working in partnership with them would help in making availability of
proper infrastructure facilities for waste disposal and its recycling.
 Go Global - To fund a community with whom one is already working and requiring
employment or progresses in their environment (LInkedin, 2018).The contributions
should be made towards organizations which are already doing great job in waste
management. The awareness among people should be created that plastic waste could
severely affect marine life and that efforts should be made by every individual to keep
the oceans clean and prevent them from plastic wastes.

Sustainability Practices of Plastic Collective
The solution provided by Plastic Collective is based on three fundamental pillars, which are
allowing people with information, revolutionizing new designs and materials, and generating
applied and dependable tools and machinery which include shruder machine (Journey
Australia Staff, 2019). The company has started Shruder program which include use of
equipment and related training and provides communities with an endways plastic recycling
solution for valued recycled plastic production in the form of shredded raw material, filament
and moulded products (Shah, 2017). The motion of shruder enables the plastic recycling
machines to approach the waste, eradicating the preventive cost of transferring plastic waste
in remote islands (Neubert, 2016).
Plastic Collective has also introduced the Plastic Neutral Certification (PNC) for businesses
and companies, wherein they can counterbalance the quantity of plastic utilized by them over
direct sponsorship on Shruder program. It enables the businesses to subsidize to sustainability
as well as social responsibility in a positive manner (Starik & Kanashiro, 2013). The
businesses and corporations provide funds to the remote community, which needs such
programs. It is the goal of the company to carry the Shruder program to around 4000 remote
and isolated island societies, wherever waste collection does not generally exist and to
renovate the plastic waste economy.
Strategic Implementation
Plastic Collective is already making every possible effort to prevent the marine life from
plastic waste disposal in seas and oceans. In order to implement the process of waste
collection and its sustainable use, varying clean-up strategies could be utilized and
alternatively, source reduction strategy should also be considered (UNEP, 2017). It requires
proper planning, organizing, leading and controlling.

Role of Planning
The main objective will be to clean the oceans from plastic waste and plastic source
reduction. It will include fund raising for infrastructure facilities so that waste could be
collected and segregated for recycling them to some useful plastic items. The teams should be
divided in different groups so that each group are given different tasks and responsibilities.
Role of Organizing
The project of cleaning the ocean and utilizing the plastic waste for recycling into other
useful products, the teams should be divided as collecting team, segregating team, shruder
operating team and managing team. All the team members should be given the
responsibilities so that each one of them could do their jobs effectively.
Role of Leading
The role of leader is significant in any project because it is a leader who directs the process in
an effective manner. A person will be made in-charge of the project so that he/she could lead
the project in a correct direction and ensured success of the project (Anthesis Group, 2019).
Role of Controlling
The leader or in-charge will be responsible for the progress of the project. The progress of the
project will be evaluated from time to time. The amount of waste collected and segregated by
the team members from time to time will provide an idea about the success of the project.
In this way, for effective implementation of waste removal strategy, it is essential for the
company to delegate responsibilities among all the team members and provide them the
authority to take their decisions and to contribute to achieve the objective of the company.
Conclusion/Recommendations
After having a look at the efforts being made by Plastic Collective, it has been realized that
establishing longstanding objectives and sustainable reporting are essential for the company.

Furthermore, controlling system is also required to be improved by establishing an effective
communicating network among stakeholders. In addition, as the financial budget greatly
depends on donations and funds by sponsors, the company should coordinate with the
sponsors to share the responsibility of waste collection and its recycling so that operating cost
could be reduced. In this way, marine life could be prevented from ingesting plastic waste
dumped by people in the water resources.
References
Anthesis Group, 2019. How can your organisation tackle the sustainable plastic challenge?
[Online] Available at: https://www.anthesisgroup.com/plastic-sustainability [Accessed 31
May 2019].
Australian Government, 2016. Toxic tide: The threat of marine plastic in Australia. [Online]
Available at: https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/boomerangalliance/pages/222/
attachments/original/1462673233/report_%281%29.pdf?1462673233 [Accessed 31 May
2019].
Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2016. The new plastics economy: Rethinking the future of
plastics. [Online] Available at:
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_New_Plastics_Economy.pdf [Accessed 31 May
2019].
Geyer, R., Jambeck, J.R. & Lavender, K., 2017. Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever
made. Law in science advances, 3(7).
Journey Australia Staff, 2019. Collect. transform. create. How Plastic Collective and Coca-
Cola are collaborating in the circular economy. [Online] Available at: https://www.coca-
colajourney.com.au/stories/how-plastic-collective-and-coca-cola-are-collaborating-in-the-
circular-economy [Accessed 31 May 2019].

LInkedin, 2018. About us. [Online] Available at:
https://in.linkedin.com/company/theplasticcollective [Accessed 31 May 2019].
Neubert, M.J., 2016. Developing sustainable management theory: goal-setting theory based
in virtue. Management Decision, 54(2), pp. 304-20.
Plastic Collective, 2019. Our news. [Online] Available at:
https://www.plasticcollective.co/news [Accessed 31 May 2019].
Plastic Collective, 2019. The issue plastic waste. [Online] Available at:
https://www.plasticcollective.co/plastic-waste-issue [Accessed 31 May 2019].
Rochman, C.M., 2016. Strategies for reducing ocean plastic debris should be diverse and
guided by science. Environmental Research Letters, 11(4).
Shah, V., 2017. What’s a Shruder and will it help end plastic pollution? [Online] Available
at: https://www.eco-business.com/news/whats-a-shruder-and-will-it-help-end-plastic-
pollution/ [Accessed 31 May 2019].
Starik, M. & Kanashiro, P., 2013. Toward a theory of sustainability management: uncovering
and integrating the nearly obvious. Organization & Environment, 26(1), pp 7-30.
Trucost & Ocean Recovery Alliance, 2016. Scaling sustainable plastics. [Online] Available
at: http://www.plasticityforum.com/perch/resources/scaling-sustainable-plastics-report-1.pdf
[Accessed 31 May 2019].
UNEP, 2017. Biodegradable plastics & marine litter. [Online] Available at:
https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/7468/-
Biodegradable_Plastics_and_Marine_Litter_Misconceptions,_concerns_and_impacts_on_ma
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