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The Canadian team published a journal article titled “Reflections From Implementing a Virtual Social Innovation Lab”. This article highlights key lessons learned from adapting a social innovation lab to an online environment. An interesting innovation is the use of interactive tools like Gather.Town to improve participant engagement and Kahoot! for gamification to expand creative thinking. This article is available with open access in the International Journal of Qualitative Methods.

The UK SIMBIO team have published their third and final SIMBIO report. This document details the findings from their third innovation lab event and gives implications for the project as a whole. Authored by Professor Benny Tjahjono, Dr. Macarena Beltran, Dr. Jordon Lazell, Dr. David Bek and Dr. Anna Bogush, the document provides an overview of the content discussed in the third Social Innovation Lab ‘Prototyping Solutions’ by stakeholders from the bioplastics industry, retail sector, consumer associations, government agency representatives, NGOs and international and UK academics.

The ‘Prototyping Solutions’ lab was held both online (via Zoom) and onsite (TechnoCentre in the city of Coventry) on the 25th of November, 2021, with the objective of evaluating the feasibility, practicality, and potential impacts of six cluster solutions to improve the sustainable uptake of BBPP, as well as prototyping and testing these solutions within the social innovation lab container. The six cluster solutions that emerged from the previous labs are: communication with consumers, end-of-life policies, certification standards and labelling, and education and development of specific products. The information provided in this report is based on presentations from eight experts who discussed their views on these six cluster solution areas, as well as the breakout discussion sessions with stakeholders and prototyping sessions for three BBPP products: ready meal trays, coffee pods and food caddy liners.

This report also sets out the key policy and industrial action recommendations that need to be taken
collaboratively across the supply chain to be able to move forward with the uptake of BBPP. In order to
provide a wider analysis and discussion, this document reviewed the current UK and EU policy gap and
integrated the findings from the three social innovation labs carried out between March and November
2021: a) Seeing the System; b) Designing solutions, and c) Prototyping solutions, which gathered diverse
stakeholder perspectives and collectively identified actions to support a future pathway for the biobased
biodegradable plastic sector. These are:

R&D for specific products

• Policy recommendation #1: Expand R&D investments to produce products that offer an alternative to fossil-based plastics that are hard to recycle and/or prone to contamination, or provide extra environmental benefits over other materials.
• Policy recommendation #2: R&D investments to continue evaluating the sustainability of biobased biodegradable plastic products by looking at the life cycle.
• Policy recommendation #3: Expand R&D investments to improve biodegradability in industrialfacilities and home compost.

End-of-life

• Policy recommendation #4: Invest in industrial composting and adequate anaerobic digestion facilities to support the uptake of biobased biodegradable plastic packaging products.
• Policy recommendation #5: Create disposal and collection routes for biobased biodegradable plastic packaging products.

Certification standards

• Policy recommendation #6: Greater accountability and collaboration to implement certification standards that must ensure alignment with both product labelling measures and waste management procedures.

Communication

• Industrial action recommendation #1: A comprehensive marketing strategy that includes different layers and at various supply chain stages.

Education

• Policy recommendation #7: Create education programmes focused on removing consumer confusion from labelling, providing memorable advice to encourage the right end-of-life procedure.
• Policy recommendation #8: Develop educational programmes aimed at home composters to guide them in the biodegradability of plastics.
• Industrial action recommendation #2: Develop educational campaigns aimed at key composter associations to guide them in the processing of composting biobased biodegradable plastics.

Overall policy

• Policy recommendation #9: Develop a policy framework for biobased biodegradable plastic packaging, focusing upon R&D, communication, certification and labelling, education and end-of-life.

See the report document for further details.

We are pleased to announce that we have a journal article accepted for publication in Sustainable Production and Consumption titled The complex role of single-use compostable bioplastic food packaging and foodservice ware in a circular economy: Findings from a social innovation lab. This article highlights themes from the social innovation lab conducted in Canada, which include challenges and opportunities with regulation, end-of-life management, single-use consumption culture, and feedstock sourcing.

This article is open access and available at this link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352550922002123

On July 5, SIMBIO partner universities from Brazil, Canada, Poland, and the UK presented findings from this project. Check out the webinar recording and presentations below.

Introduction Presentation

Brazil Presentation

Canada Presentation

Poland Presentation

United Kingdom Presentation

The article “A Perspective of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Plastic Waste Management and Cooperatives of Waste Pickers in Brazil”, recently published in the journal “Circular Economy and Sustainability”, presents an analysis of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Cooperatives of Recyclable Material Waste Pickers and the challenges of plastic recycling during this period in Brazil.

Considering that in 2020 Brazil became the global epicenter of Covid-19, this scenario directly affected the habits of the population. One of them was the increase in the consumption of plastics due to its importance in packaging and in applications as protective material. At the same time, the country also faces the worsening of social problems related to waste management, especially due to the important role played by waste pickers in this chain.

“The waste pickers are professionals who need visibility and social protection not only to face the current health crisis, but also to guarantee their income and survival”, points out Lais Roncalho, postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Chemistry at the Federal University of São Carlos (DQ – UFSCar), member of the Center for the Development of Functional Materials (CDMF) and first author of the article.

For the elaboration of the work, the researcher says that data collection was carried out based on the literature in order to organize the history of waste management in Brazil, as well as the current challenges of the health crisis. Data from CEMPRE (Business Commission on Recycling), ABRELPE (Brazilian Association of Special Waste and Public Cleaning Companies) and other organizations were also used to build a critical analysis of the topic.

“In this study, we point out the lack of data on waste management in the country and highlight the importance of the social inclusion of waste pickers for an effective Circular Economy. After the pandemic and the change in scenario that has been taking place, we concluded that we need adequate planning and improvements in waste management, recycling programs and political intervention to guide collective responsibility and, thus, guarantee the social rights of waste pickers”, concludes Lais Roncalho. The article also has the contribution of researchers Sandra A. Cruz, professor at the DQ – UFSCar and also linked to the CDMF, and Rafaela F. Gutierrez, a reseacher at the University of Toronto.

To access the full article, click HERE. And the original post (in portuguese) HERE.

Lais Roncalho, postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Chemistry at the Federal University of São Carlos (DQ – UFSCar), member of the Center for the Development of Functional Materials (CDMF) and the SIMBIO group, is the first author of the article “Challenges in the context of single-use plastics and bioplastics in Brazil: A legislative review” recently published in the scientific journal Waste Management & Research.

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With the proposal to carry out a legislative review regarding the Brazilian scenario facing the challenges of laws in the context of plastics and bioplastics, one of the motivations for writing the article, as Roncalho says, was the fact that Brazil does not have structured data in this context, as well as the difficulty of accessing the laws.

“We noticed a big gap in the literature regarding this type of discussion and that is why we carried out this in-depth review work, where we present a legislative review and discuss the difficulty of implementing policies related to encouraging the bioplastics market. In this sense, the state and municipal laws that prohibit single-use plastics in Brazil are also presented, laws that encourage the replacement of these plastics with biodegradable ones”, she explained.

On the other hand, despite laws and decrees passed that prohibit straws and other disposables by states and municipalities in Brazil and advances in replacing these materials with others of biodegradable origin, the country still faces major challenges in terms of waste management.

“Our research concluded that the most accurate solution for the future impact of bioplastics in Brazil is based on the need for improvements in the proper management of waste, as well as in the recycling and composting of these materials, in accordance with the guidelines imposed by Organs competent bodies. This includes, for example, the development of government policies that encourage the Circular Economy”, informed Roncalho.

The methodology applied by the authors for data collection was based on databases and digital platforms such as the Legislation Portal, the LegisWeb platform, for State Laws, and the Municipal Laws system. In these channels, access was obtained to all the legislative material produced in the history of Brazil, where data were collected and analyzed in detail. Throughout the article, the history of environmental legislation in the country was presented in a descriptive way, evaluating the main guidelines and actions contained in the advance of public policies to ban single-use plastic, aiming at reducing environmental damage.

Sandra A. Cruz, professor of the DQ – UFSCar and CDMF member, and Rafaela F. Gutierrez, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, are also authors of the published work. The research in question has been carried out in partnership with groups from Brazil, Canada, Poland and the United Kingdom, which are jointly developing the project “New Frontiers in Social Innovation Research: Social Innovation Management for BIOPlastics (SIMBIO)”, financed by FAPESP, through of the Trans-Atlantic Platform (T-AP) modality.

The article can be accessed by clicking HERE.

The CDMF, headquartered at the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), is one of the Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centers (Cepids) supported by the São Paulo State Research Support Foundation (Fapesp), and also receives investment from the National Council Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), from the National Institute of Science and Technology of Materials in Nanotechnology (INCTMN). The original interview (in Portuguese) can be accessed HERE or HERE.

By Macarena Beltran, Benny Tjahjono, David Bek, Jordon Lazell, Anna Bogush and Lahandi Baskoro

Unlocking the bioplastics supply chain

The Social Innovation Management for Bioplastics project – SIMBIO – led by the Centre for Business in Society in Coventry University and funded by the ESRC, aims to address the environmental and social challenges of bioplastics packaging throughout its entire supply chain. Focusing on bioplastics is important as the packaging industry faces an imperative to reduce the devastating environmental impacts created by fossil-fuel based plastics. The third and final SIMBIO lab entitled Prototyping Solutions was held on the 25th of November, 2021 online (via Zoom) and Onsite (TechnoCentre in Coventry). The lab aimed to evaluate the feasibility, practicality, and potential impacts of solutions that emerged from the second lab, which include: communication with consumers, end of life, policies, certification standards and labelling, education and development of specific products. The lab also aimed to prototype and test these solutions within the social innovation lab “container”.

Participants representing a wide range of stakeholders, including producers, academics, consumers, NGOs, waste management and government representatives, and other important organisations that are part of the bioplastic packaging supply chain, joined the lab to hear from industry experts and participate in two exercises. The event was kicked off with the welcome talk from Professor Nigel Berkeley, Institute Director in the Faculty of Business and Law. This was then followed by a reminder of the mission of the SIMBIO project and a recap from the previous labs from Professor Benny Tjahjono of Coventry University.

Views from industry experts with a wide range of expertise and backgrounds

The event featured presentations from industry experts who were invited to share their knowledge about the different streams of solutions. Kevin Vyse, Head of Technical, ProAmpac RAP, made an opening address that highlighted the timely need for a circular economy and systemic actions in the bioplastic sector. David Newman, Managing Director, Bio-Based and Biodegradable Industries Association (BBIA), presented the findings of a survey conducted with British shoppers, which explored communication issues with consumers, such as people’s [lack of] understanding of the current labelling system for plastics packaging. 

Following this presentation, Alice Harlock, Membership and Services Manager from The On-Pack Recycling Label (OPRL), talked about labelling. She emphasised the idea that consumers need information at targeted touchpoints to influence their behaviour. Dr Erik Ansink, Associate Professor at the Department of Spatial Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, shared the main findings of his study about recycling decisions for bioplastics. He suggested that educating consumers to change the default recycling behaviour needs efforts beyond logos and recycling information.

Leanne Williams, Policy Analyst from The Anaerobic Digestion and Bioresources Association (ADBA), reviewed certain waste management processes, regulation and policy (end-of-life) that need to be improved for the processing of bioplastics by the AD sector, Susan Jay, Sector Specialist from The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) shared with the participants the “Compostable plastic packaging guidance” which recommended the use of bioplastics materials for specific applications such as flexible compostable packaging “where it is likely there will be contamination of food waste and co-disposal could encourage food waste recycling – product and packaging can, in theory, be disposed of together” and rigid compostable packaging, primarily in closed systems.

Prof Mark Miodownik, Professor of Materials and Society, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering Sciences, UCL, shared some of the findings of his project “Big Compost experiment” and finally Iris Aquilina, leader of the Bioladies Network and Ambassador of BBIA, discussed the policy and regulatory landscape in the UK and EU around the adoption of bioplastics.

Prototyping Solutions for specific products under certain scenarios

The lab featured two workshop exercises with the participants. Firstly, participants were invited to join parallel break-out sessions to explore the feasibility, practicality and impact of the different solution streams explored by the speakers. On-site break-out sessions focused on specific products, end of life and policies. Break-out sessions delivered ample discussion on the complexities of these solutions.

Secondly, to facilitate the prototyping and testing of different solutions for the uptake of bioplastics products, the research team from CBiS and CAWR created a scenario board game inspired by the Scenario Exploration System produced by the European Union’s Policy Lab team. The latter is used to understand the systemic implications of different actions. Participants were divided into three groups. To create a realistic scenario environment, each group was assigned to a specific product (coffee pods, food caddy liners and ready meal trays) and a particular crisis scenario (e.g. climate change, prolonged pandemic and economic crisis) which encouraged participants to adapt their strategies.

The players were then invited to prioritise certain processes within the bioplastic supply chain (designed in the first social innovation lab) and assign limited resources within different time horizons (5, 10 and 20 years). Resources were related to the solutions streams explored. Players were also encouraged by the game masters to develop collaborative solutions. Whilst there were no winners or losers in each scenario game –the participants were encouraged to indicate which scenario is more feasible to be prototyped.

The discussions during the games have helped participants to think of ways of driving the uptake of biobased biodegradable plastics packaging. Furthermore, it was clear that such participatory approaches play an important role in bringing stakeholders from different sectors to co-create solutions and promote sustainability at the same time.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives published a new report on the state of waste in British Columbia and a proposed agenda for zero waste by 2040. Tamara Shulman and Belinda Li, two of the researchers from the SIMBIO Canadian team, supported the development of this report. This report outlines the predicament with plastics that doesn’t just apply in British Columbia, but also across Canada and the world, including the rising proliferation of bioplastics. The report proposes several next steps to address the problems with plastics, which focuses mostly on banning single-use plastics, significantly reducing use of virgin plastics and the number of types of plastics in circulation, and supporting small businesses in the transition away from single-use items.

The eventual goal should be to substitute all plastics with non-toxic materials that can be reused for a long time before being recycled or composted.

– A Zero Waste Agenda for BC