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The European Union (EU) aspires to be an important global agenda-setter on how to treat and regulate the growing plastics problem. We present an analysis of the plastic policy narratives shaping European plastics governance, in particular through the European Commission's Plastics Strategy. Our aim is to first uncover the policy narratives at play, and then examine how actors make use of those narratives through strategic construction. Based on interviews with key stakeholders and document analysis, we identify four narratives: fossil feedstock dependency, resource inefficiency, pollution, and toxicity. We find that the resource inefficiency and pollution narratives figure most prominently in European plastics governance, and that the circular economy is being advanced as a policy solution that cuts across the different narratives. However, surface agreement on the need for 'circularity' hides deeper-lying ideological divisions over what exactly the circular economy means and the different directions this implies for plastics governance.

To utilise carbon dioxide as a resource rather than treating it only as a polluting greenhouse gas is gaining increased attention. Expectations on the future capabilities of technologies that could make utilisation of carbon dioxide possible are currently raised in scientific literature. These are in important ways shaping the development process by defining what is possible and desirable to develop. Building on sociology of expectations, we show how some of these expectations are in conflict. The most notable expectation of carbon dioxide utilisation is that it will contribute to mitigation of climate change, but at the same time there are conflicting expectations regarding suitable applications, requirements on feedstock and energy use, and how the concept should be framed in relation to other technologies. These conflicting expectations show how different types of actions are encouraged, and how technologies related to seemingly similar goals could result in very different levels of greenhouse gas emissions and thereby climate change impact.