Responsibility fixes: patching up circular economy value chains

Abstract

Recycled plastics value chains are being collaboratively constructed amid calls for greater responsibility of the corporates driving today’s plastic waste crisis. The resulting ‘responsibility fix’ bolts new arrangements onto linear production processes, offering a mechanism to push linear processes towards circularity, while starting to patch up some of the social and economic injustices associated with waste-picking work within contemporary systems of capitalist production and consumption. This research draws upon semi-structured interviews to trace international collaborations within recycled plastics value chains to identify how new, low-disruption, circular business models are being built.