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State and local pressures drive plastic pollution compliance strategies

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-21, 08:28 authored by Kathryn Willis, Britta HardestyBritta Hardesty, Chris WilcoxChris Wilcox
Environmental harm from plastic pollution partly results from compliance failure at the individual level. Three prevalent non-compliant motivations for polluting plastics include economic gains, ignorance of the rules and unlikely penalization from inadequately enforced rules. Given compliance is primarily the responsibility of local waste management, we conducted interviews to gain insights to the factors driving changes in the crucial onground controls of plastic pollution. We expand on non-compliant motivations and provide a theoretical framework to test the aforementioned. We show that compliance strategies are strongly driven by state judicial and economic controls, specifically new plastic legislation and levies. Furthermore, the priorities of waste managers and the socio-economics and population density of their constituents drove changes in local management efforts. Our findings support the view that the growing global attention on plastic pollution shapes not only what happens at a state level, but also importantly on-ground at the local level.

History

Publication title

Journal of Environmental Management

Volume

287

Article number

112281

Number

112281

Pagination

1-8

ISSN

0301-4797

Department/School

Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies

Publisher

Academic Press Ltd Elsevier Science Ltd

Place of publication

24-28 Oval Rd, London, England, Nw1 7Dx

Rights statement

Crown Copyright © 2021 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Environmental education and awareness

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