Blockchain Technology for Governance of Plastic Waste Management: Where Are We?

Abstract

Blockchain technology is emerging as a plausible disruptor of waste management practices that influence the governance of plastics. The interest among the waste management community in the potential and fundamental changes to complex resource management associated with blockchain adoption parallels recent research in other sectors, such as finance, health, public administration, etc. During any comparable period characterized by a step-change in positive coverage of an early-stage technology, it can be challenging for actors to access a grounded, evidence-based oversight of the current state of practice and make informed decisions about whether or how to adopt blockchain technology. The current absence of such a systematic overview of recent experiences with blockchain initiatives disrupting waste practices not only limits the visibility of these experimental efforts, but also limits the learning that can be shared across waste plastics researcher and practitioner communities. This paper contributes with a current overview of blockchain technology adoption in the waste management sector, giving particular attention to implications for the governance of plastics. Our study draws on both primary interview data and secondary documentation data to map the landscape of current blockchain initiatives in the global waste sector. We identify four areas of blockchain use that are beginning to change waste management practices (payment, recycling and reuse rewards, monitoring and tracking of waste, and smart contracts). We conclude by outlining five areas of significant blockchain uses, implications, and influences of relevance to the development of circular plastic waste governance in both research and practice.

Bibliometric Analysis of Smart Public Governance Research: Smart City and Smart Government in Comparative Perspective

“…Still, we notice fewer smart government publications than smart city publications. Indeed, this is because scholars' study smart city-related concepts more often (Sánchez-Teba and Bermúdez-González 2019; Steenmans et al 2021) and, according to Moradi (2019), smart city as a field has been on the agenda since 1970. Following and upgrading the existing bibliometric approaches (Caputo et al 2021;Kitsios et al 2020;Shams et al 2020) the analysis reveals interesting insights.…”

Mitigating bureaucratic inefficiencies through blockchain technology in Africa

“…According to research by Batubara et al (2018), the lack of legal and regulatory support is the main environmental barrier to adoption. Steenmans et al (2021) also came in fourth place with their analysis of implementing blockchain technology in the waste management sector. They paid special attention to the consequences of the governance of plastics.…”

Waste management and green technology: future trends in circular economy leading towards environmental sustainability

“…The increasing applications of plastic in businesses and social life have made WTM face many problems of ecological concerns such as limited recycling and pollution. The focused area in the context of plastic waste are explaining life cycle assessment of chemical recycling of plastic waste (Davidson et al 2021), blockchain for plastic WTM (Steenmans et al 2021), identifying key barriers in plastic recycling (Yin et al 2021;Milios et al 2018), responsibility of producer regarding plastic pollution in aquatic system (Chowdhury et al 2021), recycling of polymers, plastic WTM strategies (Fletcher et al 2021), evaluation of household recovery system and closing the loop of post-consumer plastic waste (Zhang et al 2021f;Hahladakis and Iacovidou 2019), and quality of recycled plastic waste and contamination in plastic recycling (Khan et al 2021d;Eriksen et al 2018).…”