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In 1978 the plastic bottle was introduced nationwide. In the thirteen years since that historic (and some say environmentally devastating) occasion, the consumer increasingly has embraced plastic packaging. Each American uses about 190 pounds of plastic per year, according to Earthworks Group, and about 60 pounds of it is discarded within minutes or seconds after opening. The plastic bottle is king. American consumers use 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour.

In 1987, Campbell Soup Company introduced the Souper Combo, a line of frozen soup and sandwiches. Melvin Druin, vice‐president for packaging, called it “the perfect combination of old‐fashioned good taste and today's convenience. No mess. No fuss. Easy to use. All you have to do is clean your spoon. Everything else just throw away.” Unfortunately, the multi‐layered plastic‐coated packaging does not just disappear when thrown away. Plastics packaging, particularly from convenience products, has become a waste disposal nightmare. Garbage, an environmental magazine, gave the Souper Combo an “in the dumpster” award, saying, “It's precisely the kind of product that's created the municipal landfill monster.”

Plastics waste management is a critical agenda for the global community. Recycling is the most important strategy option for recovering plastics wastes. This study aims to review reverse logistics (RL) implementation practices and conceptualizing it to the plastic recycling system.

The paper is organized after evaluating the studies related to plastics waste recycling and analyzing the available frameworks to use RL as a strategic tool.

The paper has investigated that previous research on RL implementation focused on a few stages of RL activities and did not include the most important issues. However, for successful RL implementation, taking into account the whole stage and including the most important factors is very important. To elaborate on this finding a new conceptual framework is developed.

The paper is fully based on literature review and international reports. The developed framework is required for further empirical validation in the plastics sector.

The paper has considered the important issues and the applications of those factors that can improve plastics recycling performances.

This study can enhance the active involvement of main actors (plastics producers, users, municipal and recyclers) in the plastics recycling system.

This paper deliberates on how RL can be conceptualized and implemented in plastics recycling systems in considering the most important factors for plastics recycling.

India generates a massive 9.4 million tonnes of plastic waste annually; out of which approximately 5.6 million tonnes go for recycling and 3.8 million tonnes are left uncollected or leaked from after-use collection systems. Reckless production and consumption of non-biodegradable plastic has serious implications, especially for developing nations where plastic use is predominant for fulfilling needs of increasing population and rapid urbanisation. Despite the harmful impacts of plastic, its desirability is inevitable due to its versatility. For the stringently growing economies, affordable and durable solutions will always be priorities over mindfulness. Imprudent plastic waste has precipitated the ban-change-collect challenge. Options like banning single use plastic (SUP), using alternative bio-benign products and improving waste collection systems are not proactively embraced by businesses and governments. Also, user-awareness and behaviour change for make-use-dispose is not instantaneous and easy. Optimistically, the government, NGOs and industry units have started exhibiting sensitivity to the cause and the emergence of start-ups is decentralising waste management in India. Inclusion of informal waste pickers in the formal waste management system has increased the reach and social impact of start-ups in India, imparting a distinctive and promising twist to the waste management sector. This chapter investigates the plastic waste management scenario in India through extensive literature review. It scrutinises the social aspects associated with the plastic waste management sector and attempts to comprehend connotations of ‘socially responsible plastic’ through semi-structured interviews with service providers in the sector. Thematic analysis was used to analyse interview data. The research indicated the initiation of systemic efforts towards formalisation of the sector. It emphasised the importance of role of waste pickers and their recognition as enablers of the system. Need of an ecosystem approach to nurture start-ups and facilitate better transparency and integration in the waste management system is also illustrated in this research.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a new model in which the interrelationship between the barriers can be determined that hinder the implementation of effective recycling processes in the plastic sectors of India.

Today manufacturers do not want their input to be deemed waste and subsequently be discarded, so their efforts and resources have been channeled into the development of efficient recycling methods. However, there are several barriers hindering the implementation of effective and efficient recycling. In this paper several of the most influential barriers are taken into consideration and implemented in the interpretive structural modeling.

The results divided the barriers into four clusters and identified the weak and strong barriers and implemented relationships between them.

Globally plastic waste has been steadily increasing. Recycling plastic has received much attention because many companies are using it as a strategic tool to serve their customers and to generate good revenue, but there is a lack of effective recycling units in India. The work of this paper and its results will be helpful in the implementation of an effective and efficient recycling unit for the plastic sector.

The recycling process can be improved by avoiding barriers of PLASTIC recycling.

In this paper, the plastic industries of India are studied and analyzed, and the barriers are found.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the waste characteristics and separation efficiency of source separation of household waste in low- and middle-income communities in Kumasi Metropolis, Ghana.

A sample of 60 households participated in the household survey, education on source separation and pilot source separation exercise. The solid waste was sorted into six fractions and three recycling categories (biodegradable; paper and plastic; residue).

The mean generation rate of solid waste was 0.52±0.26 kg/per capita/day for the low-income community and 0.65±0.27 kg/per capita/day for the middle-income community. The waste fractions in the communities (low, middle income) were biodegradable organics (59.15, 65.68 per cent), plastics (11.01, 10.68 per cent), papers (3.15, 4.51 per cent), glass (0.89, 2.57 per cent), metals (0.96, 4.63 per cent) and miscellaneous (24.84, 11.93 per cent), respectively. The separation efficiency for organic category was 70 per cent, inorganic and residue was over 69 per cent and the paper and plastics was over 60 per cent.

The study suggests that the success of source separation programme hinges on education and economic incentives. It was noted that the sample size could be increased to enhance the accuracy of the data for prediction purpose.

The findings showed there is potential for recycling through source separation programme in low-and middle-income communities. Public education and economic incentives are necessary for successful source separation programme.

The paper provides insight into source separation to contribute to better understanding of how city authorities in developing countries could take advantage of economic incentives to scale-up recycling.

This paper aims to present the production of waste plastic oil from landfill waste plastics, the performance and emissions of a compression ignition (CI) engine, using waste plastic oil, were tested and compared with using diesel oil. The physical characteristics, gross calorific value (MJ/kg), kinematic viscosity cst @40°C, specific gravity @15.6°C, cetane index, flash point and distillation temperature @90 per cent are determined. The experimental CI engine is a four-stroke, direct injection, single cylinder, 709 C.C. and has been tested with in-brake-specific fuel consumption (BSFC), brake conversion efficiency, brake-specific energy consumption and exhaust gas emissions.

The results show that the characteristics of liquid fuel from landfill plastics (LFLP3) are similar to diesel oil. The CI engine was able to run with LFLP3. The efficiency was slightly higher than that of diesel fuel, whereas the BSFC was lower. The exhaust-gas emission average for LFLP3 was reduced compared to diesel oil operation.

The efficiency of the CI engine using LFLP3 is slightly higher than diesel fuel at all load conditions. In this study, LFLP3 was a lower pollutant than diesel fuel. Environmental values and energy consumption are important when reviewing the ignition of any fuel in a combustion chamber.

The efficiency of the CI engine using LFLP3 is slightly higher than diesel fuel at all load conditions. In this study, LFLP3 was a lower pollutant than diesel fuel. Environmental values and energy consumption are important when reviewing the ignition of any fuel in a combustion chamber.

Plastic has been a very useful material which is very cheap, easy to carry and is resilient to biodegradation. That is why plastic has been used, sometimes reused, and overused due to the reasons mentioned above. As a result, landfills and oceans are full of plastic. But if we consider all the negative health effects, environmental / ecological effects it has in present times, we can understand that it is environmentally very expensive to use plastic. Bangladesh is a relatively young country with dense population and limited resource. Proper management of plastic remains an issue with the country. Considering these, this chapter focuses on how plastic is used, how it is treated as waste and what can be possible solutions in reducing the amount of plastic in Bangladesh.