‘On its arse!’ – interrogating the state of the UK’s plastic packaging recycling market

The UK’s plastic packaging recycling market is on its arse. This begs the question: why? I address this question through in-depth case study research. My critique involves an original drawing together and combination of complementary writing in Market Studies and Discard Studies, and the articulation of ‘scales of market practice’ as an explicit means of conceptually apprehending and interrogating the state of the market. The work undertaken contributes more broadly to the debate on the theoretical deficits of the circular economy (CE), providing a theoretically consistent and novel means of accounting for the scalar politics of material flows and the related materialisation of barriers to circularity. I conclude with a critical reflection on the implications of this paper for the CE. Mobilising the empirical case, I specifically highlight a troubling scalar mismatch between the dominant idea that plastic packaging circularity is achievable via standardisation and the multiple intricacies of market practices, as well as the divergent material pathways they help to produce. I argue that the multiplicity at the heart of my account relegates notions of neat and tidy circles of resource use to a fallacy of market mastery that does not exist, which is important to acknowledge.