Results

This policy paper shows municipal policy options for enabling and supporting companies and consumers to reduce and avoid plastic packaging. Core elements in the support of companies are various offers and activities for the establishment of a low-packaging product range and for the expansion of reusable systems.

This article by Bastian Loges and Anja P. Jakobi from the REPLAWA joint project deals with different norm dynamics and governance forms of plastics.

In International Relations, little research exists that examines the specific actors, structures and processes involved in the diverse regulatory activities regarding plastics. This paper provides a framework for such an analysis.

When buying food, more and more consumers want to avoid plastic packaging. However, it is often difficult to find products without plastic packaging. Often, there is a lack of alternatives or consumers lack knowledge about the most ecological packaging. In addition, many consumers would have to change their shopping behavior completely and, for example, would need to go shopping more frequently, because unpacked fresh goods are not that durable. This is often incompatible with everyday life.

This article by Ecologic Institute's Linda Mederake and Doris Knoblauch uses a structuring qualitative content analysis to investigate the parliamentary debates of two recently adopted plastic policies in the EU – namely the EU Plastics Strategy and the Single-Use Plastics Directive – and assess the relevance of public health and environmental arguments for the EU debate.

One of the first cross-project results of the research focus has been published: The discussion paper "Microplastics Analytics" reflects the current state of research on physicochemical investigation methods within the research focus and is intended to contribute to a pool of methods that is as standardised as possible for the relevant application fields in science, industry and administration.

In this article, the authors analyze the diffusion patterns of plastic bag bans and plastic bag taxes in the Global South and Global North to contribute to the further refinement of diffusion theory by specifically addressing the under-researched Global South.