Towards a circular plastics economy: Interacting barriers and contested solutions for flexible packaging recycling

The concept of a Circular Economy (CE) stands out as a holistic approach to mitigate the detrimental effects of traditionally linear economies. However, the transition towards circular systems of production and consumption does not happen automatically. While barriers are often analyzed in isolation and assumed to be equally relevant in an industry, this article focuses on the interrelation of regulatory with other barriers and explores disagreements between different actors in a value chain. By taking a value chain perspective on the case of recycling in flexible packaging, we highlight how regulatory barriers are affected by economic and technical barriers. We also find that different value chain players have divergent views on how best to remove current (regulatory) barriers. We term the subjects of such disagreement “contested solutions.” Researchers aiming to inform policy-making should consider such contested solutions, ideally by extending their barrier analyses accordingly.