Economics 14, University Essay: Plastic Pollution, Circular Economy

This economics essay provides a comprehensive analysis of plastic pollution, examining its causes, including urbanization, consumer behavior, and manufacturing practices, and its detrimental effects on oceans, human health, wildlife, and the economy. The essay then defines and discusses the concept of a circular economy, highlighting its philosophical origins and the role of digital technology in supporting the transition. Furthermore, it explores how a circular economy influences six key characteristics outlined in the 'New Plastics Economy Global Commitment report, 2019,' emphasizing the importance of eliminating problematic packaging, promoting reuse models, ensuring recyclability, and preventing plastic waste from entering the environment. The essay uses Walmart as a case study and concludes with a judgment on the sustainability of business practices within the context of plastic pollution and the circular economy.

Running head: ECONOMICS
Ethics, Sustainable and Social Impact
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Introduction:
The essay provides a deeper insight into plastic pollution and its impact on the planet.
Plastic pollution refers to the accumulation of the plastic particles and objects within earth’s
environment that impacts habitat, wildlife and the humans (Dauvergne 2018). These plastic
objects ranges from bottle, microbeads or bags. Most of these plastics are manufactured from
chemicals that comes from production of the planet warming fuels that includes oil, gas and coal.
Increased reliance on plastics prolongs the demand for the dirty fuels.
Plastic pollution has been the greatest dangers to sustainability of planet since it poses a
significant threat to the oceans. A study conducted in the year 2015, discovered 5.25 trillion
plastics to be floating around. It has been found that plastic sticks around the environment for a
long time thereby spreading toxins and threatening the wildlife. Plastic has also been found to
contribute to the global warming. However, some of the threats posed by plastic pollution
includes, acidification, ocean warming, climate change, habitat destruction and over fishing.
Besides, burning plastic has also been found to release the climate wrecking gases thereby
causing air pollution.
The company chosen for this essay is Walmart Inc. It is one of the most renowned retail
chain based in United States and operates departmental stores, grocery stores and hypermarkets.
In UK, Walmart acquired Asda in the year 1999 thereby becoming one of the biggest
supermarket of Britain (corporate.walmart.com 2020).The essay provides a detailed analysis of
the effects and causes of the plastic pollution along with an evaluation of its performance based
on six characteristics put forward by ‘New Plastics Economy Global Commitment report, 2019’.
The essay also defines and discusses circular economy and portrays how it will influences six

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characteristics of the global committee report. The essay concludes on making a judgment on
sustainability of business practice for an organization.
Discussion:
Causes of Plastic Pollution:
The uncontrolled dumping of the plastic waste has been a key environmental topic that
attracted attention of nations and conservationists (friendsoftheearth.uk 2020). A report put
forward by World Bank in the year 2014 indicated that solid waste mostly categorized as the
single use plastic materials has been doubling at alarming rate (Seltenrich 2015). In recent times,
plastic pollution has been major nuisance and posed significant threat to entire environment
thereby resulting in air, land and water pollution. The toxic compounds in plastics leads to grave
consequences to only wildlife, ocean life but also to the plants and humans. There are various
causes of plastic pollution. Some of the causes includes urbanization and population growth,
affordability makes it the raw material for manufacturing process, reckless disposal by the
consumers, slower rate of decomposition, impact of the fishing and the marine industry (Sigler
2014).
As far as population growth and urbanization is concerned, it can be said that the
enhanced growth rate of population leads to a higher demand for cheap and available resources.
The rising demands of the consumers have led to the increased demand and manufacture of
plastic due to its easy availability. In most of the urban areas, plastic comprised of a greater
portion of landfills and constituted close to 80 percent of municipal waste (Pai et al. 2014). When
it comes to raw materials for manufacturing process, plastic seems to be the best choice due to
affordability. This led to the tripling of their production in recent times. In the manufacturing

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industry, plastic has been used for making plastic cans, straws, bags, wrappers for packaging,
linings for cartons and food containers. Although, plastic seems to be an easier and cheaper
option for the manufacturing industry, it leads to environmental pollution. As far as the consumer
behavior is concerned it is primarily the reckless disposal of plastic by consumers. Plastic seems
to be one of the easily disposed items as a result of the lightweight. Some of these plastic items
includes plastic bags, plastic bottles, wrappers, food containers and straws (De los Rios and
Charnley 2017). The use period of these items seems to be shorter and are disposed quite easily
once their usage is over. Due to the easy availability as well as affordability, consumers are quick
at disposing used plastics. This culture has worsened the plastic pollution since the plastic ended
up in getting disposed in either the bins or roadsides or get discarded aimlessly in landfills. With
regard to slower rate of decomposition, plastic takes a lot many years for getting decomposed
since they possess a stronger chemical bonding that allows them to last. The simplest plastics
like the ones used for the grocery stores takes a minimum of close to 50 years for breaking down
while the complicated ones takes a minimum of 100 to 600 years for getting decomposed
(Lambert and Wagner 2017). Disposable diapers and plastic bottles takes close to 450 years to
get decomposed while fishing lines take a minimum of 600 years according to the conservation
reports. As far as the impact of fishing and marine industry is concerned, it contributes to the
plastic pollutions in the oceans. The rural beaches of the remote areas comprise of plastic rubbish
that tends to get washed to the shores. This plastic rubbish mostly comes from the ships, boats,
steamers and also the fishing net which is made from plastic. The plastics seems to give away
toxins in water that impacts the marine wildlife in different ways and are sometimes ingested by
marine creatures. Once in water, the debris takes years to undergo decomposition thereby
adversely affecting the marine wildlife and also killing them due to ingestion.

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Effects of Plastic Pollution
The plastic pollution also had its impact on the planet for instance the oceans, people’s
health, wildlife and economy (Wilcox, Van Sebille and Hardesty 2015). The details of which is
mentioned in the following paragraphs.
As far as the effect of plastic pollution on the ocean health is concerned, the most
disturbing and visible impacts of plastic on marine life is through suffocation, ingestion and the
enlargement of the marine species (Cózar et al. 2014). Marine animals like seabirds, whales,
turtles and fishes mistaken plastic waste for prey and are found to die in starvation as their
stomachs gets filled with the plastic debris. They also get entangled in the plastic debris that
causes starvation, suffocation and drowning. According to United Nations, closer to 800 species
across the world had been affected by the marine debris out of which 80 percent seemed plastic
(Vegter et al. 2014)
When it comes to people’s health, plastic pollution exposes people to chemicals not only
during the manufacturing but also through the usage of plastic packages since some of the
chemicals are found to migrate from plastic packaging to the food it contains. Examples of the
plastics that contaminates food are Styrene from the polystyrene, plasticizers from the PVC,
Acetaldehyde from the PET and antioxidants from the polyethylene (Wright and Kelly 2017).
The nature of packaged food and chemical structure of migrants controls the migration.
Plastic pollution is also found to effect the economy. A recent study conducted on
Marine Pollution Bulletin portrayed that plastic pollution in world’s ocean raises the cost of the
society to about $2.5 trillion on a yearly basis. The reports put forward by ‘The Guardian’

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showed that the cost of the plastic waste rose up to $33,000 and had reduced value for the
environment (Walker 2018).
The plastic pollution is also found to effect the wildlife. The pollution causes major harm
to all organisms alike be it smaller or bigger (Hardesty et al. 2015). When it comes to wildlife,
the famous deer of Nara Park in Japan was killed by ingesting plastic litter. The deer was found
with close to 4.3 kg plastic in the stomach. Similar thing has been found to be happening with the
deer of UK. More than half the camels die in Arabian Peninsula every year through ingestion of
plastic bags that forms huge calcareous lumps in the stomach. In the year 2018, an elephant had
been killed in India due to ingestion of shopping bag made of plastic. In the same year, a reindeer
was killed in Norway due to entangling with the fishing nets. Zimbabwe also witnessed the death
of reindeer in the year 2016 due to eating of bread bags made from plastics.
Defining and Discussing Circular Economy and its Theories
The circular economy refers to the economic system that remains aimed towards the
elimination of the waste and ensure the continuous use of the resources (Geissdoerfer et al.
2017). Within a circular economy the economic activity tries to rebuild and build the overall
system of the health. The concept has been found to recognize the importance of an economy
that needed to ensure effective working at most of the scales which included smaller and larger
business, individual and organization and the local as well as the global. Transitioning towards a
circular economy not only requires adjustments aimed at reducing negative impacts of linear
economy but also include systemic shift that aided in building a long-term resilience, generate
business and economic opportunities and put across environmental as well as the societal
benefits.

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The concept of the circularity has major philosophical and historical origin. The concept
of the feedback, the cycles of the real world systems has been ancient and has echoed in the
philosophy of the various schools. It enjoyed revival of the industrialized countries post the
Second World War that led to the emergence of the computer based studies of the non-linear
systems which unambiguously put across the interrelated, complex and the unpredictable nature
of this world that one lives in and that which has been increasingly familiar to the metabolism in
comparison to machine (Korhonen, Honkasalo and Seppala 2018). With the present advances,
the digital technology has been found to possess the power of supporting transition to the circular
economy through radically enhancing the de-materialization, visualization, intelligence driven by
feedback and transparency.
Influence of Circular Economy on the Six Characteristics of the New Plastics Economy
In a circular economy, plastics never becomes a waste. They seem to recognize this
particular vision by offering a solution to the plastic pollution that has immense economic,
societal and the environmental benefits. In relation to plastic packaging this particular vision of
the circular economy has been described with the help of six characteristics
(newplasticseconomy 2019).
The first characteristics mentions the elimination of the unnecessary or the problematic
plastic packaging via innovation, redesign and newer delivery models as a priority. This
portrayed that plastic has various benefits. While at same time, there has been the existence of
problematic items in market that required to be eliminated for the achievement of the circular
economy and there are times when the packaging might be avoided while ensuring the
maintenance of utility.

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The second characteristics mentions that reuse models is only applied where it seems
relevant thereby reducing need for the single use packaging. In doing so, improving the recycle
seems crucial and recycling cannot take place by moving out of plastic issues faced currently.
Reuse models related to business must be explored wherever relevant as the preferred inner loop
that helps in reducing need for the single use packaging of plastic.
The third characteristics focused on the fact that all the plastic packaging are 100 percent
recyclable, reusable and compostable. This initiates combination of innovation and redesigning
as a part of the business model, material, reprocessing technology and packaging design.
Compostable packaging does not represent blanket solution but is suitable for the particular and
targeted applications.
The fourth characteristics mentioned that all the plastic packaging can be recycled,
reused or remain composted in reality. Reinforcing the concept of the concept of the circular
economy the characteristic can be elaborated as no plastic must be disposed in environment. It
doing so, it should be remembered that incineration, landfill and the waste to the energy does not
represent portion of circular economy. The companies responsible for selling or producing the
packaging holds responsibility beyond design and the use of the packaging. Here the government
should also play a role in setting effective infrastructure that aided in funding mechanism thereby
allowing policy and the regulatory landscape.
The fifth characteristics focused on usage of the plastics that remains decoupled from
the consumption of the finite resources. This involves decoupling through reduction of the use of
the virgin plastics. It should be remembered that usage of the recycled content is vital for
decoupling from the finite feedstock thereby stimulating the demand for the recycling and

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collection. As a part of the circular economy, the leftover inputs must get switched to the
renewable feedstock that proves to be beneficial environmentally. In other words, the recycling
and the production of the plastics must remain powered completely through renewable energy.
The sixth characteristics mentioned that all the plastic packaging remained free of the
hazardous chemicals thereby respecting the safety, health and the rights of all people. This
implies complete elimination of the use of hazardous chemicals in the manufacturing as well as
packaging. This is vital for respecting the safety, health and the rights of people remaining
involved in all portions for improving the conditions of the workers in the informal sector.
Brief Description of Chosen Company and its Performance Dependent on the Six
Characteristics
Walmart Inc. represents a chain retailer that offers vast collection of the groceries, home
goods, apparel and the electronics (corporate.walmart.com 2020). The retailer in compliance
with the ‘New Plastics Economy Global Commitment report, 2019’ has made an announcement
of undertaking newer initiatives aimed towards advancing sustainability of private brand
packaging of the retailer and promoting the recyclable labels that is consumer friendly. Through
leveraging the program related to the private brand, Walmart was able to issue newer means of
commitments for waste reduction (Xanthos and Walker 2017). The newer commitments
introduced by Walmart has been expected to influence close to over 30,000 Stock Keeping Unit
(SKUs). The step has been designed for getting an insight to problem through focusing on the
private brand packaging of retailer and building additional efforts for reducing the plastic waste
thereby encouraging the suppliers of national brand in setting packaging goals
(corporate.walmart.com 2020). At supplier forum, the executives of Walmart highlighted that the

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retailer has been working with the suppliers for expanding the efforts and improving
sustainability in packaging of the products belonging to private brands with a focus on enhancing
the recyclability thereby making it easier for the customers to recycle the products (Negi and
Anand 2014).
Walmart however made an announcement that it would work for the private brand
suppliers based on certain commitments which are mentioned as follows:
 Seeking towards achieving a 100 percent reusable, recyclable and composite packaging
for the packaging of the private brand by the year 2025.
 Targeting close to 20 percent of the recycled content of consumers in packaging of
privatized brand by the year 2025.
 Labelling the 100 percent consumable and food packaging of the private brand with
‘How2Recycle®’ by the year 2022.
 Working with the suppliers for eliminating non-recyclable PVC material for packaging of
the generalized merchandize by the year 2020.
 Reducing the plastic packaging for the private label wherever possible thereby optimizing
its use for meeting the need.
Walmart also encouraged the suppliers of the national brand for making similar
commitments towards packaging through the platform of Project Gigaton platform of the retailer.
In addition to this, Walmart also launched a recycling playbook that provided information to the
companies for pursuing the goals of recyclable packaging. The playbook also provides an
overview on the kind of packaging that seemed effortlessly recyclable thereby providing
evidence on the challenges of recycling faced for specific materials of packaging. The newly

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adopted means of recycling guidance acted as an addition to prevailing packaging playbook on
sustainability since it offered information on the best practices of sustainable packaging like the
optimization of the packaging design and usage of recycling labels that are consumer-friendly
(Brockhaus et al . 2016).
Nevertheless, plastic waste has been rising concern for the associates, customers and the
stakeholders of Walmart. The objective of the retailer lay in achieving a zero level of plastic
waste through undertaking actions across the business and working with the suppliers in using
lesser amount of plastic, undertake more recycling of waste and support innovations for
improving the reduction system of the plastic waste (Breggin et al. 2019). However the current
efforts of Walmart in reaching the goals would include:
 Offering lower cost and higher quality of alternatives for single use consumable plastic
foodstuffs like cutlery, straw and the throwaway table tops.
 Recycling the shrink wrap in all markets. The year 2017 witnessed recycling of close to
151 million pounds of plastics on a global scale.
 Providing an access to the film recycling bins and the in store plastic bags for the
customers.
 Encouraging the suppliers for including ‘How2Recycle label’ on the pack. In the year
2018, over 800 private label suppliers of Walmart seemed to have participated.
Conclusion:
On a concluding note, it can be said that plastic pollution is really creating a threat to the
planet, environment and the oceans. This primarily due to the non-decomposable nature of the
plastics. In fact, takes an estimated time period of hundred years in getting completely
decomposed. The essay puts across a vivid description on the causes and effects of the plastic

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pollution. The essay also discusses the concept of circular economy and the way it influences the
six characteristics outlined by the report put across by ‘New Plastics Economy Global
Commitment report, 2019’. The essay discusses the initiatives of Walmart in complying with the
clauses of the ‘New Plastics Economy’.
An initiative of reducing plastic waste on part of the Walmart has acted as a milestone in
delivering access to sustainable and higher quality product. The announcement also sends
positive signal to marketplace. The retailer not only established stronger recyclable goals for
packaging but it also encouraged the others in pursuing similar levels of ambitions. Walmart’s
decision of reducing the plastic waste has been part of a larger commitment of the retailer in
using its scale and size for doing business in a manner that aimed to towards the enhancement of
economic opportunity, encouraging the sustainability and strengthening the local communities.

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