Forging A Gender-Household Plastics Nexus in The Circular Economy

Inexpensive, lightweight and durable, it is difficult to imagine a world without the ubiquitous plastics. If you have ever looked around your kitchen, bathroom or living room, you will realise something: plastic is everywhere. From packaging and bottles to bags and straws, it is hard to escape the pervasiveness of plastics. However, plastics are a double-edged sword. Despite playing an indispensable role in modern society, plastic pollution has become a pressing environmental issue. Household plastics in particular, is a key component of plastic waste discarded daily in homes around the world. For example, nearly 2 billion pieces of plastic packaging are thrown away weekly in households across the United Kingdom (Sedgwick, 2024).  As we face a growing plastic waste crisis, the concept of the circular economy is often construed as a sustainable solution. In contrast to the linear ‘take-make-use-dispose’ model, the circular economy seeks to transform waste into resources through a range of R-behaviors. Via reduce, reuse and recycling efforts, new commodities are (re)produced out of secondary materials.

In their review article titled – Household Plastic Waste Management and Gender Dynamics in Circular Economies, Shakuto et al. (2024) present a first attempt at providing a systematic review of the treatment of household plastics in the fields of sociology and cognate social sciences. Using the Web of Science database as their search engine, the authors synthesised promising trends associated with practices related to plastic products as they are consumed and managed by people in the household. More than a passing concern, Shakuto et al. (2024) found the myriad of ways in which plastics function as socio-technical devices influencing human behaviour, shape markets and impact regulatory mechanisms. Beyond being just a remarkable material, their review based on a variety of case studies around the world problematizes the issue of plastic management as a non-straightforward practice.

Besides highlighting the unique role plastics play in shaping different facets of the Anthropocene, the review article by Shakuto et al. (2024) also illuminated a handful of case studies on plastic waste management that touch upon gender relations and feminised labour. According to their research, existing literature on waste disposal largely situates plastic waste management as a ‘responsibility’ or ‘burden’ to be undertaken by women. However, the authors argue there is limited scholarship that sheds a gendered perspective on the consumption of household plastics.

So, why does gender even matter in the consumption of household plastics and circular economies? As the household is increasingly becoming a fertile site for intervention vis-à-vis circular initiatives, transitioning towards an integrated plastic waste management system is not simply about how material loops are being closed. Rather, patterns of plastic generation at the household level are fundamentally contingent upon who manages household plastics. As the domestic sphere is primarily helmed by women, practices involving household plastic consumption and management practices are often predicated on feminized labour. From cooking, cleaning to caring, women often interact intimately with plastic products to perform these domestic tasks. In view of these segregated conjugal roles, research on plastics-social entanglements from a gendered dimension is important to advance a more equitable circular future.

Emphasising the importance of forging a more nuanced gender-plastics nexus, Shakuto et al. (2024) utilised a range of examples from their review article to articulate the different levels of agential power women possess, consumption practices women undertake and emotional sensitivities women attend to in relation to household plastics. In a separate historical paper on the evolution of women-plastics relationships in Japan, Shakuto et al. (2024b) chronicled the ways in which Japanese women organize themselves collectively to incorporate plastics into the household (agency), detail precautions associated with plastic use (consumption) and mobilize motherhood and kin work (emotions) to flash out the toxicities of plastics on children’s health. Rather than viewing gender as an ‘additional’ dimension to understanding the management of plastics, their historical paper stemming from the Japanese experience underscores the integral contributions women have made, and can make in shaping the future of plastics.

In summation, Shakuto et al.’s (2024) review highlights a significant lacuna in the scholarship on household plastic waste management. From a spatial standpoint, their review revisits the household as a site where gender roles are reconfigured and articulated through the management of plastics and plastic waste. From an identity standpoint, their review serves as a clarion call to recognise women’s overlapping social roles within and beyond the household, opening up a promising angle of research between plastics and women as multiple constituted beings who are citizens, workers, mothers, wives and activists all at once. Although plastics and gender have been thoroughly engaged as discrete categories by environmental and feminist scholars respectively, their review forms a useful starting point to bridge productive dialogues within these two bodies of literature.

References

Sedgwick, A. (2024). UK’s largest household plastic waste survey returns following government inaction. Greenpeace UK. https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/uks-largest-household-plastic-waste-survey-returns-following-government-inaction/#:~:text=Almost%20a%20quarter%20of%20a,abroad%2C%20or%20languished%20in%20landfills.

Shakuto, S., Yeoh, B. S. A., Reynolds, D., Rahadini, I. A., Tan, Q. H., & Pang, N. (2024). Household plastic waste management and gender dynamics in circular economies. Sociology Compass, 18(12). https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.70023

Shakuto, S., Watanabe, C., & Yeoh, B. S. A. (2024b). Negotiating Plastics: De-mythicizing Individual Responsibility and Plastic Materialities in Japan, from the 1940s to the 1970s. Japanese Studies, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2024.2418836