The matter of value: Circular economy for plastics, extended producer responsibility schemes and recycling in India

Over the past two decades plastic wastes have escalated from being a nascent concern into a critical environmental emergency. The latest round of negotiations for the global plastic treaty, an initiative envisioned to create a binding international framework to address plastic pollution concluded without a final agreement. Simultaneously involved stakeholders – international foundations, businesses, politicians, and policymakers – have been advocating a circular economy (CE) framework to address the plastic crisis. CE for plastics borrows from generic models of CE that propose keeping materials in circulation at their highest value without really defining what constitutes as value. In this paper, I address the question of value with regard to materials like plastics and highlight the double paradox of having to make plastics – inherently durable materials that are produced to be wasted – valuable again. Drawing on ethnographic research in Telangana and Mumbai, India, I outline the three intersectional strands of value that emerge as plastics are revalued through recycling. In conclusion, I argue for the need to factor in material attributes that creep into afterlives for artificially produced materials like plastics as they travel the junctures between waste and value through their life cycles.