This article surveys the politics of plastics through a reading and analysis of more than 180 scientific articles in the fields of environmental science and environmental studies. Despite the many benefits of plastics, the global plastic system is increasingly being recognized as the source of severe environmental problems. Rather than orient the investigation around specific venues, levels, or architectures of governance, our survey first follows plastic through its life cycle, and then considers the major categories of plastic objects addressed in the current literature, and the different approaches taken to each category. The politics of plastics is a growing field of inquiry, with the most rapid expansion in the areas of marine pollution and microplastics. Our consideration of plastic flows reveals increasing politicization towards the latter end of the life cycle, that is, plastic as waste and pollution. Turning to plastic objects, we observe different forms of mobilization, and varying connections between flows and objects, which allow for multiple interpretations of what is at stake. In the closing section, we consider two recent trends in the plastic governance discussion that take a more holistic view of the plastic crisis: attempts to construct (a) a circular plastics economy and (b) global plastics conventions or treaties. We end the paper by highlighting the need for studies to further investigate the norms and practices that maintain the role of plastics in society, as well as the political and economic arrangements that secure its overabundance and low price.

This paper presents the results of a survey of perceptions on sustainable procurement (SP) in the United Nations (UN). It is the first of its kind to systematically analyse the issue of SP in the UN system. While the UN has a tremendous opportunity to support their objective of sustainable development through SP practices, significant obstacles still block the full implementation of this goal. The purpose of this study is to investigate the barriers to implementing SP practices in the UN system. Based on an online survey that yielded 282 responses, we identified a framework of SP measures and barriers, and conducted a regression analysis to identify underlying correlations. We find significant correlation between good SP practices and low demand, performance measurement and tool barriers.

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.

Abstract:How do professions respond to fast-moving technological changes? Disruptive innovations overturn expectations about how markets function and develop, and they often raise moral, legal and scientific concerns among professionals. Sudden technological changes can result in a state of professional disruption, in which technological change challenges the institutional arrangements of a profession. This article distinguishes between fast and slow processes of professional change, focusing on the role of technology as one cause of fast changes to a profession. Professionals and non-professionals engage in framing contests that draw on cognitive, normative and relational keys to signal their expectations. It is in these framing contests that professionals run the risk of disruption. Drawing on interview data with key policy actors, I investigate electronic cigarettes regulation in the European Union and its recent revision to the Tobacco Products Directive. Medical and public health professionals that control tobacco issues were challenged by a coalition of e-cigarette industry representatives, e-cigarette users, and liberal politicians. The challengers drew on the contending norm of harm reduction in tobacco control, which successfully challenged the centrality of the abstinence norm in the institutional arrangements of the medical and public health professions and their organizational field. By discussing the parallels to other related cases in health regulation, I draw out the implications of the study for researchers and policymakers.