Archetypes to classify upstream packaging strategies for a circular economy

Plastic pollution is a serious issue of global concern which requires an urgent and international response involving all relevant actors at different levels of the supply chain. Increasing production of single use plastics and the mismanagement of the resulting plastic packaging waste is one of the prominent reasons for this pressing environmental issue. Several potentially promising solutions, such as reusable, recyclable and compostable packaging systems exist. Many of these innovative approaches may contribute to achieving a circular plastic economy, but there is a need to categorise and collate these under unifying themes to facilitate the assessment and comparison of different strategies.

The aim of this research is to analyse and categorise the existing solutions that tackle the plastic packaging waste problem to identify the archetypes of these solutions. Literature and business practice reviews were conducted to discover existing solutions. 200 solutions were selected and categorised by exploring the common patterns. Finally, 10 archetypes and 17 sub-archetypes were introduced. These archetypes are: refill stations, mobile refill stations, refill at home solutions, prefilled packaging systems, reusable takeaway and delivery solutions, B2B reusable packages, packaging solutions led by elimination, compostable and biodegradable packaging, substitution to a non-plastic material and plastic recycling. The findings led to the development of an upstream packaging strategies framework. This paper makes an original contribution to knowledge with the development of this framework as a systematic way to map existing (and new) solutions that can potentially tackle the plastic packaging waste and pollution problem.