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Mauritius is a Small Island Development State (SIDS) with limited resources, and it has been witnessed that many containers used for storing household and industrial products are made from plastic. When discarded as waste, those plastic containers pose a serious environmental and economic challenge for Mauritius. Moreover, landfill space is getting increasingly scarce, and plastic waste is contaminating both land and water. Therefore, it is of the utmost necessity to develop solutions for Mauritius' plastic wastes. Due to its abundance and accessibility, plastic waste is a promising material for recycling and energy production. One potential solution is the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to predict household plastic consumption, allowing policymakers to design effective strategies and initiatives to reduce plastic waste. Such information is a critical component to be able to efficiently plan for the collection and routing of trucks when collecting recyclable plastics. The development of new strategies for the recycling of plastic waste and development of new industry can address the import and export potential of the country to achieve self-sustainability as well as contribute to reduction in plastic pollution and amount of waste landfilled. These plastics can thereafter be used effectively for recycling and for the making of 3D printing filaments which fall under the SDGs 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure) and 12 (Responsible consumption and production).

The chapter aims to evaluate the efficacy of stakeholder participation in the solid waste management system of Mauritius in view of providing a possible mechanism to attain the goals of a sustainable waste management framework.

The study employs qualitative indicators, namely, User Inclusivity and Producer Inclusivity of the Wasteaware Benchmark Indicators. Secondary data are used to conduct a critical and comprehensive analysis of the sub-indicators falling under each of the two main indicators to determine the overall compliance level with respect to stakeholder engagement of the waste management sector of Mauritius.

The results of the study show a LOW/MEDIUM compliance level for both User Inclusivity and Provider Inclusivity indicators, which indicates that improvement is required in the stakeholder engagement mechanism in Mauritius. The main weaknesses identified comprise of lack of an adequate legal framework with clear definition of waste types with regards to segregation, especially for non-hazardous wastes, low efficiency of sustainable waste management awareness campaigns and lack of inclusion of the informal sector. The main strengths identified consist of a proper bidding mechanism in place and a good level of equity in the provision of waste management services with respect to comingled waste collection. Suggested improvement areas include a revamping of the existing legal framework related to waste management to cater for higher inclusivity of all stakeholders together with including sustainable waste management topics in the formal education curriculum.

The User Inclusivity and Producer Inclusivity indicators were previously applied only to cities to measure the level of stakeholder participation, but this study has demonstrated that these indicators can also be adopted on a nation-wide level to evaluate stakeholder engagement. The use of these indicators together with secondary data presents a less time-consuming method to assess stakeholder participation in the waste sector, which can be particularly useful for Small Island Developing States.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways in which academic researchers frame and conduct sustainability research and to ask to what extent we are limited by these frames.

Our approach is based on an epistemological critique. We begin with a discussion of the ways in which sustainable consumption has been conceptualised within marketing; we question the influence of positivist social science research traditions and examine how research on sustainability is impacted by the structure of academia.

Our critical reflection leads us to suggest three ways in which sustainability research might be re-framed: a reconsideration of language, a shift in the locus of responsibility and the adoption of a holistic approach.

We propose that in order to make progress in sustainability research, alternative frames, terms, units of analysis, method(ologies) and research ambitions are needed.

By making visible our collective, unexamined assumptions, we can now move forward with new questions and agendas for sustainability research.

This chapter reviews marketing scholarship on environmental sustainability. The literature covers several themes of both consumer behavior and firm-level topics. Consumer issues include their assessment of efficacy and the extent to which they are aware and sensitive to environmental issues. Numerous interventions and marketing appeals for modifying attitudes and behaviors have been tested and are reported. Consumers and business managers have both been queried regarding attitudes of recycling and waste. Firm-level phenomena are reflected, including how brand managers can signal their green efforts to their customers, whether doing so is beneficial, all in conjunction with macro pressures or constraints from industry or governmental agencies. This chapter closes with a reflection on the research.

More than 30 legal recyclables were proclaimed by Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) in Taiwan of those producers and importers are liable for paying a Resource Recycling Fee (RRF). The Resource Recycling Management Fund determines both the tariff of RRF and the subsidy rate for recycling activities based on a predetermined pricing formula and collects the revenue to finance its collection and disposal. While contemplating on whether to proclaim waste mattress as a legal recyclable, EPA is facing several critical challenges, particularly the lack of data required for setting a tariff–subsidy mix. In this chapter we critically review the formula and propose an innovative pricing rule. Also, we develop a science-based approach to demonstrate how a tariff–subsidy mix could be determined under the circumstance of data deficiency. By doing so, we avoid not only the difficulty in solving the nonhomogeneous and nonautonomous first-order difference equation that governs the stock accumulation of waste mattress but also the distributed lag model of multiperiods linking quantity of mattress discarded and the quantity of new mattress sold. Such an approach could be applied to the durables for recycling pricing particularly when relevant data are limited.

Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured supply chain practices, lack of awareness of the implications of the sustainability concept and failure to recycle poultry wastes. The current research thus attempts to develop an integrated supply chain model in the context of poultry industry in Bangladesh. The study considers both sustainability and supply chain issues in order to incorporate them in the poultry supply chain. By placing the forward and reverse supply chains in a single framework, existing problems can be resolved to gain economic, social and environmental benefits, which will be more sustainable than the present practices.

The theoretical underpinning of this research is ‘sustainability’ and the ‘supply chain processes’ in order to examine possible improvements in the poultry production process along with waste management. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and ‘design science’ methods with the support of system dynamics (SD) and the case study methods. Initially, a mental model is developed followed by the causal loop diagram based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observation techniques. The causal model helps to understand the linkages between the associated variables for each issue. Finally, the causal loop diagram is transformed into a stock and flow (quantitative) model, which is a prerequisite for SD-based simulation modelling. A decision support system (DSS) is then developed to analyse the complex decision-making process along the supply chains.

The findings reveal that integration of the supply chain can bring economic, social and environmental sustainability along with a structured production process. It is also observed that the poultry industry can apply the model outcomes in the real-life practices with minor adjustments. This present research has both theoretical and practical implications. The proposed model’s unique characteristics in mitigating the existing problems are supported by the sustainability and supply chain theories. As for practical implications, the poultry industry in Bangladesh can follow the proposed supply chain structure (as par the research model) and test various policies via simulation prior to its application. Positive outcomes of the simulation study may provide enough confidence to implement the desired changes within the industry and their supply chain networks.

The Waste Management Hierarchy is a well-established framework for conceptualizing the spectrum of desirable behaviours to manage, reduce and avoid waste. To date, research relating to the householder behaviours on the Waste Management Hierarchy has primarily focused on the lower order disposal and recycling behaviours, reflecting the areas of historical policy attention. Recently, however, policy focus has shifted to ‘higher order’ behaviours such as reuse and avoidance, in line with Circular Economy thinking. To address the measurement gap, this chapter develops and tests a battery of householder waste behaviour measures across the entire waste hierarchy. The battery was piloted with 573 South Australian householders, where the ‘higher’ order waste behaviours are more likely to be displayed as the Waste Hierarchy has been embedded in waste policy directives for many years. Findings empirically validate the Waste Management Hierarchy, deliver a quantified benchmark of the prevalence of behaviours across its spectrum and explore the underlying motives driving pro-environmental behaviour.

Purpose: Ocean plastic pollution has increased scrutiny towards businesses that produce plastic packaging. The article presents the perspective of businesses alongside those of consumers concerning packaging sustainability, as these two areas are fundamentally related.

Method: A mixed-methods approach consisted of an interview with a plastic packaging design manager, an action research group of packaging industry professionals and a survey (of 1000 UK consumers) and focus groups to investigate similar issues from a consumer perspective.

Findings: The business research showed that they feel frustrated by emotional arguments against plastic that push towards alternative packaging formats that have greater negative environmental impacts. They also highlighted problems of inconsistent recycling infrastructure and the need to communicate the benefits of packaging more effectively to consumers. The consumer research identified high levels of awareness of ocean plastic pollution but a lower understanding of the properties of different packaging materials. Many do not yet look for the most sustainable packaging when shopping and feel that retailers must take more responsibility for reducing environmental degradation from the packaging.

Originality/Value: The study provides a new perspective on packaging sustainability issues by combining the views of industry and consumers. In doing so, it acknowledges the different human influences on environmental outcomes. A realist conceptual model highlights the potential mechanisms triggered within different contexts. While the research is just a snapshot of views on selected topics, it conceptualises various components of the relationship between businesses and consumers to identify different aspects of the problem for further research.

This chapter provides an overview of waste management across Europe. It offers an outlook of evolution of waste generation and how European Union (EU) countries treat waste, by providing historical and current data as well as by describing a few best practices of waste management companies and municipalities throughout Europe. The circular economy framework applied to urban waste management and the zero waste strategy are described.