Alternative Plastic Economies: A Multiple Correspondence Analysis of Global Bottom-up Initiatives to Combat Plastic Pollution

How are global bottom-up initiatives to combat the plastic crisis organized? We know a lot about the mainstream space of plastic governance and activities towards enhancing sustainability of the plastic system. In recent years, scholarship has painted a clear picture of global plastic governance that aims at ‘future-proofing’ the petrochemical sector by revalidating and defending existing business models through circular economy initiatives (Mah, 2021; Palm et al., 2024; Tilsted et al., 2022). Such future-proofing often rests on a technocratic capture of the policy process that results in business-friendly regulation and a high degree of optimism for technological fixes (Chertkovskaya et al., 2023b; Palm et al., 2022). Moreover, these attempts are currently mainly addressing the global plastics pollution whilst conspicuously omitting plastic’s fossil dependency and projected production growth, as well as its contribution to the climate crisis (Chertkovskaya et al., 2020; Tilsted et al., 2023).