Plastic pollution solutions: emerging technologies to prevent and collect marine plastic pollution

China's extraordinarily rapid economic growth since 1978, driven by market-oriented reforms, has set world records and continued unabated, despite predictions of an inevitable slowdown. In "The State Strikes Back: The End of Economic Reform in China?," renowned China scholar Nicholas R. Lardy argues that China's future growth prospects could be equally bright but are shadowed by the specter of resurgent state dominance, which has begun to diminish the vital role of the market and private firms in China's economy. Lardy's book arrives in timely fashion as a sequel to his pathbreaking "Markets over Mao: The Rise of Private Business in China," published by PIIE in 2014. This book mobilizes new data to trace how President Xi Jinping has consistently championed state-owned or controlled enterprises, encouraging local political leaders and financial institutions to prop up ailing, underperforming companies that are a drag on China's potential. As with his previous book, Lardy's perspective departs from conventional wisdom, especially in its contention that China could achieve a high growth rate for the next two decades—if it reverses course and returns to the path of market-oriented reforms. The data underlying this analysis are available at: https://www.piie.com/publications/bookstore/data/7373.zip

The State Strikes Back: The End of Economic Reform in China?

The crisis facing the world’s oceans from plastics is well documented, yet there is little knowledge of the perspectives, experiences and options of the coastal communities facing overwhelming quantities of plastics on their beaches and in their fishing waters. In emerging economies such as those in the Coral Triangle, the communities affected are among the poorest of their countries. To understand the consequences of ocean plastic pollution in coastal regions, through the eyes of local people, this study examines the knowledge, use, disposal and local consequences of single use plastics in remote island communities in two archipelagos of southern Sulawesi, Indonesia. Using mixed methods—a survey of plastic literacy and behaviour, household interviews about purchasing and disposal, and focus group discussions to generate shared mental models—we identify a complex set of factors contributing to extensive plastic leakage into the marine environment. The rising standard of living has allowed people in low resource, remote communities to buy more single-use plastic items than they could before. Meanwhile complex geography and minimal collection services make waste management a difficult issue, and leave the communities themselves to shoulder the impacts of the ocean plastic crisis. Although plastic literacy is low, there is little the coastal communities can do unless presented with better choice architecture both on the supply side and in disposal options. Our results suggest that for such coastal communities improved waste disposal is urgent. Responsible supply chains and non-plastic alternatives are needed. Producers and manufacturers can no longer focus only on low-cost packaged products, without taking responsibility for the outcomes. Without access to biodegradable, environmentally friendly products, and a circular plastic system, coastal communities and surrounding marine ecosystems will continue to be inundated in plastic waste.

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Ocean plastic crisis-Mental models of plastic pollution from remote Indonesian coastal communities.

Since the last few decades, the promiscuous and uncontrolled use of plastics led to the accumulation of millions of tons of plastic waste in the terrestrial and marine environment. It elevated the risk of environmental pollution and climate change. The concern arises more due to the reckless and unscientific disposal of plastics containing high molecular weight polymers, viz., polystyrene, polyamide, polyvinylchloride, polypropylene, polyurethane, and polyethylene, etc. which are very difficult to degrade. Thus, the focus is now paid to search for efficient, eco-friendly, low-cost waste management technology. Of them, degradation of non-degradable synthetic polymer using diverse microbial agents, viz., bacteria, fungi, and other extremophiles become an emerging option. So far, very few microbial agents and their secreted enzymes have been identified and characterized for plastic degradation, but with low efficiency. It might be due to the predominance of uncultured microbial species, which consequently remain unexplored from the respective plastic degrading milieu. To overcome this problem, metagenomic analysis of microbial population engaged in the plastic biodegradation is advisable to decipher the microbial community structure and to predict their biodegradation potential in situ. Advancements in sequencing technologies and bioinformatics analysis allow the rapid metagenome screening that helps in the identification of total microbial community and also opens up the scope for mining genes or enzymes (hydrolases, laccase, etc.) engaged in polymer degradation. Further, the extraction of the core microbial population and their adaptation, fitness, and survivability can also be deciphered through comparative metagenomic study. It will help to engineer the microbial community and their metabolic activity to speed up the degradation process.

Metagenomic Exploration of Plastic Degrading Microbes for Biotechnological Application.

Over the past 3 decades, a vast body of research has been published on the interactions between climate change and events that undermine negative peace. Consequently, several review papers have been published in the last few years on this nexus. However, there is still a lack of a comprehensive bibliometrics analysis of the field. Accordingly, the main aim of this study is to fill this gap to advance our understanding of the existing literature. For this purpose, we analyzed 1337 articles indexed in the Web of Science using VOSviewer and SciMAT that are two commonly used software tools for science mapping and bibliometrics analysis. The SciMAT tool was also used to examine thematic evolution of the nexus over three consecutive sub-periods (i.e., 1990–2007, 2008–2014, and 2015–2020). Results show that research on this nexus has grown steadily since 1990, but the trends have rapidly increased after the publication of the IPCC assessment report in 2007. Four major thematic focus areas were identified, namely, (1) war and violent conflict, (2) political tensions and institutional mechanisms to deal with conflicts, (3) disasters and other climatic impacts that may lead to massive human displacements, and (4) conflicts/cooperation related to water resources. Results of the SciMAT analysis confirm and add weight to these findings. They also show that, over time, issues related to environmental security have gained more attention. An important finding is that the focus has mainly been on war and violent conflicts and other events are not well addressed. The article concludes with some recommendations for future research.

Three decades of research on climate change and peace: a bibliometrics analysis


Marine plastics pollution (MPP) is an alarming problem affecting many countries, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, and generated mostly from land-based sources. Five Asian countries (i.e. China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka) have been identified as the largest sources of MPP globally. This article presents two cases studies focused on the two largest polluters: China and Indonesia. Both countries face similar challenges in dealing with plastic pollution. They have weak legal and institutional frameworks in place to deal with MPP. The two case studies also show that there have been more creative and effective measures taken at the domestic level by local governments and non-state actors, many of which involve partnerships among different stakeholders. This article argues that governance efforts to address MPP require an ‘all hands-on deck’ approach, involving multi-level and multi-actor strategies and targeted regulatory and non-regulatory measures. However, our findings also suggest that most efforts should be directed at the subnational level, from which the problem mainly originates. This article proposes a number of legal and policy recommendations, based on the lessons learned from the case studies, which can be instrumental in reducing the global MPP crisis.

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Marine Plastic Pollution in Asia: All Hands on Deck!

This article contributes to the growing debate about industrial policies and subsidies, the adequacy of the rules of the World Trade Organization (‘WTO’), and future international negotiations of industrial subsidies, using China’s practices in the hightech sector as an illustration. Through a review of China’s industrial policies in the high-tech sector including the blueprint for the forthcoming 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), we show China’s entrenched commitments and ambitions towards indigenous innovation, technology independence and global leadership in key and emerging technologies especially in strategic sectors. However, we challenge the mainstream view that the existing WTO rules are inadequate to deal with Chinese subsidies. Based on a detailed analysis of the general subsidy rules and the relevant China-specific rules, we argue that the current rules create no hurdle to tackling the major types of technology subsidies in China. Any perceived deficiencies are not China-specific and can only be addressed by WTO Members via negotiations. If such negotiations are desirable, then governments should seek to leverage the impacts of the pandemic and the global (ab)use of subsidies to generate the political will needed. Drawing on existing proposals for the reform of WTO subsidy rules, we develop some general principles and approaches to facilitate future negotiations emphasizing the need to focus on targeting trade-distortive subsidies rather than China, to balance between strengthening subsidy rules and preserving policy space, to follow economic guidance and data while accommodating political considerations, and most innovatively, to shift from the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to a country-specific approach through a scheduling method whereby an Industrial Subsidy Schedule is created to record policy objectives, subsidy commitments and exceptions of each nation.

Subsidizing Technology Competition: China’s Evolving Practices and International Trade Regulation in the Post-Pandemic Era

China plans the implementation of a nationwide market-based mechanism for greenhouse gas mitigation, appearing thus to replicate the method used most notably in the European Union to price greenhouse gas emissions. However, China’s new mechanism represents only be the tip of the mitigation iceberg. Banking on the unique characteristics of a socialist market economy, China’s government has largely relied on State-Owned Enterprises as a tool for implementing rapid change. In this article, we discuss the role played by Chinese SOE s to advance the country’s ambitious mitigation objectives. After a general description of the incentives created for emission limitation and energy saving through SOE supervision, we highlight the corresponding efforts made in the fossil-fuel, power-generation, and other key mitigation sectors.

The Contribution of State-Owned Enterprises to Climate Change Mitigation in China

Marine plastics pollution (MPP) is an alarming problem affecting many countries, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, and generated mostly from land-based sources. Five Asian countries (i.e. China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka) have been identified as the largest sources of MPP globally. This article presents two cases studies focused on the two largest polluters: China and Indonesia. Both countries face similar challenges in dealing with plastic pollution. They have weak legal and institutional frameworks in place to deal with MPP. The two case studies also show that there have been more creative and effective measures taken at the domestic level by local governments and non-state actors, many of which involve partnerships among different stakeholders. This article argues that governance efforts to address MPP require an ‘all hands-on deck’ approach, involving a multi-level and multi-actor strategy and targeted regulatory (and non-regulatory) measures. However, our findings also suggest that most efforts should be at the subnational level, where the problem is mainly originated. This article proposes a number of policy recommendations, based on the lessons learned from the case studies, which can be instrumental in reducing the global MPP crisis.

Mandy Meng Fang

Papers

Marine Plastic Pollution in Asia: All Hands on Deck!

Subsidizing Technology Competition: China’s Evolving Practices and International Trade Regulation in the Post-Pandemic Era

The Contribution of State-Owned Enterprises to Climate Change Mitigation in China

All Hands on Deck: Addressing the Global Marine Plastics Pollution Crisis in Asia

China's textbook approach to regulatory reform of the natural gas market