Shifting from Non-biodegradable to Biodegradable Plastics

Statement of Problem:

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I am talking about Nepal. The use of single-use plastics is overwhelming. The impacts are severe, not only here, but globally as well. Ranging from sachets, cups/lids to water bottles, and many more. It is not only about degradation of environmental aesthetics. It is also about how much we are so careless though we are still claiming that we are "seriously" caring our Planet.

The ban on single - use plastics is said to be a simple way for saving our planet (e.g. to prevent threatened life under water/on land by microplastics and its recirculating into ecosystem). But talks have never ended and we haven't moved an inch further in positive direction at least in my country - Nepal. The ban was in concept only. Though some progress in developed countries, the biodiversity there and in developing countries is already facing serious threat. Biodiversity and Ecosystems are global assets and not only belong to any specific country or region. 

Our local studies here is Nepal have revealed that the range of solid waste generation is within 0.025 - 0.055 kg/person/day out of which the ratio of plastics is within 11-19% by weight. The households contribute 50-75% of the total municipal waste. We have to consider an increasing trend of plastics use, hence we take 75% contribution of waste from households. If we take average figures from these data, we find that 3500 kg of total solid waste with 525 kg of plastics waste is generated per day in a city with population of 100,000. This waste is generated @ 52.5 Ton/year in a city. In such 100 cities, this will be 5250 Ton/year. This is very large/significant quantity which is now being dumped to water courses, open spaces and/or burned with all kinds of severe impacts on cities' landscapes, ecosystems' health and consequently the future of our living-base.

The dumped plastics is of single-use type and also petroleum-based which is not biodegradable and can exist on land and water for over 50 years. It is ultimately contributing to accumulate/transport in the form of microplastics into food-chain and thus polluting the environment and consequently damaging local biodiversity and human health. Due to increasing temperature, water-induced disasters and draught in the context of climate change, this kind of waste mis-management only aggravates the situation to worse. We shouldn't just observe and stay silent in such situation. We have to creatively and boldly act - Now or Never. 

This story of these data and cause-effect relationships is just an indication on how we are dealing with the plastic waste. This is a serious crime commited by our current human society with its lethargic political institutions against the Mother Nature and against our future generations. 

The simple solution in this context is about switching from non-biodegradable plastics production and use to the bio-degradable plastics. It's production, use, biodegradability is already tested in US, Thailand, Europe, China and other developed countries. For reference, the Thai Government has this document:

https://www.boi.go.th/upload/content/BOI-brochure%202017-bioplastics-20171114_19753.pdf. There are other several innovator comapanies working in this field. One of such examples is: https://biometechnologiesplc.com/ which is in UK and working globally. The governments there are also promoting such initiatives and innovative industries which are the foundations for promoting plant-based plastics (biodegradable). Despites this kind of innovations, Nepal lacks initiative to bring the idea into practice. 

Though the solution seems to be simple, the single-use plastic is still rampant and polluting the environment here in Nepal. The local governments (municipalities) are just collecting the solid waste including the conventional plastics waste and transporting it to the "landfill sites" which are actually functioning like dumping sites. The plastics is burned recklessly here and there. The solid waste management in Nepal's case is also highly politicized. Historically, no any government here could solve the crisis, so far, even just to manage the conventional waste streams. No any sustainable solution have been established so far. 

A new form of entrepreneurship is still lacking that could develop and institutionalize the simple solution. It is required to develop the industry/business and promote for the paradigm shift from generating waste to recovering resources. The term "waste to resources" is still a rhetoric jargon and hasn't yet become a reality. Below photo is a illutration of waste management (copied from one of our reports).

(Photo 1: The condition of solid waste management of a municipality in hilly region)

To some extent, our "Regulators" also understand this fact and the scenario of the level of severity our local ecosystems and eventually the Mother Earth will face heavy loss of biodiversity. The "Regulators" are also quite hopeful that some day some Donors will come to help them for banning the single-use non-biodegradable plastics. Therefore, the chaos of pollution is even more spreading without any regulatory measures. We see our rivers/water courses full of plastic bags (with methane and H2s gases) floating on the black waters and the surrounding air pollution and nuisance is just a clear indication.

(Photo 2: The municipality procures vendors to collect waste and dump onto open space close to a watercourse)

The above photo illustrates an example of Illegal dumping of municipal waste including the single-use plastics into natural water bodies near a municipality office (in Western Nepal). The "Regulator" people cross bridges over such rivers/streams 50 times a month and they are still thinking how to ban the single-use plastics in the country. I am 99.99% confident that the situation in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and other developing countries doesn't differ that much from this.  

In a nutshell, the ban on conventional single-use plastics (petrolium-based) is not feasible unless we are prepared with best options by replacing with bio-degradable plastics, namely: Poly-Lactic Acid (PLA) based or Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) - based plastics which are compatible for safe landfilling and composting even at household level. 

The solution is about shifting the traditional (non-biodegradable) plastic production/ packaging/commodity business into a resource-oriented business by incorporating the technology for production of bio-degradable plastics. The technology is readily available in developed countries in Asia region. The link below is an example of innovative activities in Thailand through technological collaboration with a German company. https://www.bioplasticsmagazine.com/en/news/meldungen/20200118Thailand-on-path-to-becoming-bioplastics-hub.php

Our Initiative (Solution) has set the objective to bring this technology into Nepal and start piloting of production, business, and safe disposal (recovery in the form of compost even at household level). The project will drive the business from promotional stage to self-sustaining with demonstration of positive effects/benefits it brings to the natural ecosystem and public health in long term. Some efforts are seen in India which we can take advantage by learning from their pilots. So far in Nepal, there is no formal evidence established about applying this technology into practice through a systematic mechanism of integrating dedicated entrepreneurship with government policy and programs. We want to fill in the existing gap in technology trasfer through piloting, demostration and policy advocacy. We see this opportunity for our serious business through collaboration mainly with entrepreneurs and the local governments (municipalities). 

The biodegradable plastics can decompose itself in the household gardens, safely designed landfill sites and in small and large containers. Normally, it just needs less than 3 months to fully degrade and transform itself into harmless constituents and mixes well with natural soil.

A radical policy shift is obviously required to support this mission. Policy and legal advocacy will also be part of this project. 

The shift of business from non-biodegradable plastics to biodegradable form is concerned to all directly or indirectly involved in business, government and the most importantly - the environment. The primary direct beneficiaries are the solid waste management systems who run waste landfill sites (actually they are now like dumping sites). Other direct beneficiaries are the households who can collect and dispose the biodegradable plastics into their own yards. This will obviously reduce the volume of transportation and sanitary landfill. If applied in it its broad sense -  the technology and production/consumption system, the natural ecosystem at large will obviously become as  the ultimate beneficiaries. The whole society and natural systems will get advantage from this policy and behavioral transformation. 

This initiative will be undertaken in 3 phases: 1) piloting in a couple of small sized municipalities by promoting entrepreneurships and technology transfer; 2) policy advocacy in a wider scale expanded to other neighboring municipalities and capacity building and enhancing demo effects; 3) triggering to central government institutions (environmental policy makers and regulators) to institutionalize the technology transfer and entrepreneurship development at national level. The third phase is quite ambitious because we need to aim higher should we want to change something for better for this noble cause. 

There will be an implementation strategy formulated with incorporation of practical knowledge, skills and evidence-based information from subject matter experts, entrepreneurs and local government officials who support  this concept to be owned by the society and the current and potential stakeholders in each pilot municipality. 

This is very critical part which is closely concerned with Approach and Methodology to be applied for this paradigm shift of thinking and technology transfer. In fact, this concept was triggered by the understanding that the local communities are fully bearing the burden to manage the non-biodegradable waste. And to some extent, there is also a good level of public awareness on this issue. The problem lies with the lethargic governance of the Municiplaities who just know how to collect the harmful waste and dispose somewhere with or without consent with the local communities. They just dump on river banks, in forest area or in a open space - known as public land. In such a situation, if to start discussing these issues and solution on biodegradable plastics, the communities will be very happy and through joint advocacy with them, the Municipality can be positively persuaded to accept the technological concept and apply in practice. 

In parallel to this approach, a group of local entrepreneurs will also be trained and their willingness and commitment will be raised. The technology gap will be fulfilled by policy shift and readiness of plastic business and entrepreneurs. The local entrepreneurs could become masters in this field if they are supported technically, institutionally and politically. 

The communities and entrepreneurs will be continuously supported side by side. This kind of technological and advocacy related backstopping is the core essence of this piloting from start to realization at Municipality level. The result will be seen and the communities will prove that they can change the current environmental governance so far it is concerned to haphazard collection and disposal of non-biodegradable plastics which has proved as the burden to the society and environment. 

In order to realize this initiative from black & white to a real one, our team of environmental experts, engineers, trainers and social innovators will collaborate internally and externally with the entrepreneurs and communities and consequently with the municipalities. We are fully equipped with knowledge and skills to undertake this challenge and bring this issue further so that the municipalities also start to own this concept. We are committed to materialize this idea with a strong bond with the communities and waste management entrepreneurs. 

I am scholar of environmental management in the areas of solid waste, liquid waste and sustainability of water systems and services. I have consulted with several municipalities here who were newly established (just 5-7 years after their formation). Before that, they were rural administrative institutions who had no such legal mandate to manage the waste. 

One of the indirect reasons I would like to apply to MIT Solve is that I applied for MIT Climate Colab Campaign with another concept (Ecological sanitation) in Nepal. The proposal gained with top 5 votes within the domain. This experience also encouraged me to try with the MIT's this global campaign. 

I am regularly reading MIT's newsletters. I was connected with MIT's thesis projects in which graduate students visited Nepal and I provided some form of support. It was about 2 decades back. Hence, MIT became one of my ideal places to learn and share. I believe, this idea is not novel for MITians but it has great potential to change a lot here in Nepal. I also hope that MIT students may still continue coming here and increase their presence in terms of advancing knowledge, resources and inspiration. 

Being an Environment scholar with 3 decades experience, I have strong enthusiasm that this initiative I want to promote and establish here will be supported with MIT or other prestigious institutions at global level. This is my attempt for a very serious purpose. 

Innovativeness of the solution: 

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The solution is simple yet demands radical shift in thinking by regulators and policy makers. We want to drive this process from some piloting at a few sites and demonstrate the effects and positive outcomes for environment and society at large. This solution is based on Integration of technology, business (entrepreneurship) and environmental policy thinking (mechanism and regulations). The technology is available yet needs to be imported from within Region. The plastics businesses are here who are serving as plastic producers and vendors for waste collection. Once we achieve the first two results, we can move to the third result, i.e. policy shift from talking to action which should be triggered by demonstration and legal advocacy, if needed as extreme measure. The public and business  movement will be enough in the best case scenario.

The communities will be first empowered with right knowledge, plastic entrepreneurs will be directly facilitated to transform their technological base, and the municipalities will be positively persuaded to adopt the policy in favor of this technology (production and use). All these aspects will be embedded into a single initiative !

Solution:   

The PLA/PHAs - based plastics are the best options to solve the current crisis. Just we need to produce here (in Nepal) with least-cost method and show the "Regulators" how it is done and can be promoted through encouragement with legal and institutional measures required to propagate the technology application.

This is an initiative that starts from young science students and fresh graduates of environment schools who will further lead the initiative. Our firm will facilitate them with coordination, knowledge management and formal communication with municipalities and entrepreneurs. 

At first the effort is to produce at a pilot scale the PLA/PHAs - based plastic bags/cups/bottles etc. and promote the products at community level with passive presence of the "Regulators". Then comes an active phase where the "Regulators" are encouraged to do some policy shift at local government level (Municipality wide). With a couple of municipalities engaged and get success with tangible / visible effects, then comes the final phase of the initiative. At this phase, the central authorities "Environment Department" of the government will be invited to see the results and they will be encouraged to move towards policy shift with better enabling environment. 

In the final phase, the local entrepreneurs and businesses will be trained to produce the PLA - based products at local level and replace the current single use plastics in everyday life of consumers. The contribution from the government will also be sought to promote the local entrepreneurs and businesses to grow the PLA production and distribution channels via existing channels of single-use conventional plastics. 

Tangible Impact Goals (needs revisting periodically): 

1) Piloting of production and use of Biodegradable Plastics: This is to be achieved at 3-5 small scale municipalities here in Nepal. The production may be at a single place through a collaborative effort of local entrepreneurs. This process should be supported through technical and financial back-ups and if possible, through some voluntary support by the local entrepreneurs. This will be time bound (1.5 - 2 years) and should result with successful production, distribution, use and demonstration of biodegradability of the new plastic form. 

2) Expansion of production, distribution and use of biodegradable plastics to other neighboring municipalities (say 5-10 more). This will be supported by demo effect and also cross-sharing through local entrepreneurs and local officials of municipalities. Synergies of all stakeholders will be best utilized and the additional municipalities will also start promoting the new production by themselves through collaboration with pioneer municipalities - those which already have some experience. This phase will start from 2nd year (possibly the last quarter) and proceed till the end of 3rd year. 

3) Policy advocacy and change at central level institutions towards promoting biodegradable plastics production and use. Provide facilitation to them for demonstration and technology transfer. The outcome should be in terms of policy shift in black & white. This phase with start from 4th year (1st quarter) till the end of 5th year. 

I would like to indicate about the progress monitoring indicators and approaches separately for 3 phases: 

1) First Phase: Piloting

We select 3-5 municipalities (newest out of 60 declared within the last 6 years) by representing three distinct eco-zones (mountain, hill, low land - Terai) with population ranging within 50000 - 100000. This will be easier to start. But we select the municipalities where solid waste is being collected by local vendors and they are dumping somewhere nearby. The communities are already perceiving this issue as very critical. 

We will consider that this phase will achieve progress  if the local vendors and communities agree on Biodegradable plastics to accept and do the piloting through collaboration. The phase will be considered complete if at least 3 municipalities start applying the technology through local vendors within 1.5 years of start date. 

2) Second Phase: Expansion

This phase will be considered successful if the piloting will expand to additional 5-10 municipalities. Let's take a milestone of additional 5 municipalities in their surroundings which will be applying this technology for plastics waste management. The strategy will be different than in the first phase. Here, the local entrepreneurs will become the change agents to expand their business of biodegradable plastics. 

3) Third and Final Phase: Policy advocacy and triggering to central government level decision makers

The progress in the 1& 2 phases will be documented and demonstrated to central level policy makers. Here, the municipality officials and entrepreneurs both will serve as change agents towards policy shift at central level. The phase will be considered successful if the central level authorities (mainly - the Ministries of Environment, Commerce and Industry) will adopt or endorse the technology as one of the feasible measures for plastics waste management. If they accept and start preparing a guideline on Biodegradable Plastics production, use and disposal, then we will consider this phase as successful. But we expact larger scale impact if we find some generous external donors or from within the government to promote and propagate this initiative to make it a national movement. 

The following sequence of logics has been applied for this initiative: 

Problem Tree: 

Damage of Ecosystem Health by Haphazard Disposal of Single-use Plastics >Absence of Technology and Regulations to Control the Pollution (illegal dumping and burning)>Lack of Enabling Policy Environment to Promote Biodegradable Plastics > Lack of Local Government's Accountability>Lack of Environmental Good Governance System in Place. 

Below is another illustration of the problem seen at one of our study sites in the municipalities. In absence of technical guidelines and regulatory mechanism, the municipality allows the vendors dump the waste into an existing pond which has already turned into anaerobic. 

We want to break this chain of devil mechanism with lack of accountability through intervention in technological application and triggering through demonstration and policy advocacy in right time, place and targets.

Solution Tree: 

Demonstration of Biodegradable Plastics technology and application to motivate plastic entrepreneurs and vendors > Ripple effect from demonstration to application and shifting plastics business from conventional (petrolium - based) to biodegradable (plant-based) > Triggering to policy makers and municipality officials / members to prepare guidelines and regulations for plastics production and use. 

This is about production of Biodegradable Plastics (PolyLactic Acid or Polyhydroxyalkanoates) known as PLA/PHAs for which we can import 2nd stage products as intermediate raw materials from abroad for short-term (from Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, China, South Korea, Turkey, etc.). For long term, the intermediate raw materials can also be produced here at local level. The primary raw materials for the production of seconadry raw materials are plant-based. Examples are: dry sugarcane stem/leaves, rice/wheat straw/husk, hemp, corn stem, bamboo leaves, agro-byproducts, etc. This will be a technical subject matter for business collaboration among the local entrepreneurs. The government may also consider tax reduction/deduction for such businesses and industries (incentives, enabling policy and business environments) at various phases of production. 

Once there is Biodegradable plastics-base, the production of plastic bags/cups/lids/trays, etc. can be started and its distribution will just become a part of the business. 

In the piloting phase, the technology and knowledge transfer will be facilitated through this initiative. In subsequent phases, the collaboration of entrepreneurs can easily lobby for incentives and growth depending on the level of awareness among the regulators. 

There is a pilot project recently lunched in India. It is government supported project being promoted by the Institute for Industrial Development (IID). We are  highly interested to learn and collaborate with the companies and innovators associated with this project. This will help us to maximize available opportunities in this Region for our environmental business. Their video is in Hindi and it can also be used in our initiative. They also provide training courses on this subject.

https://courses.iid.org.in/course/biodegradable-and-compostable-bags-b

The video descibes about the technology and current efforts the institution (IID) is investing to reach the communities and entrepreneurs. These materials and information from other several Indian initiatives will be worth exploring. India is our neighboring country and is more accessible for us to learn from on our way to bring benefit for the proposed initiative. 

We will try to capture and best utilize all the information, video tools and relevant policy documents that describe and provide technical evidences for promotion of the PLA/PHAs technology in Nepal's context. 

We are inclusive in terms of gender, educational level, experience and geographical distribution of our staff. We are proactive and transparent in our programs and policies with regards to design, planning, implementation and reporting. We are equally accountable to our valued clients (our customers) who trust us and assign some projects to undertake. 

In this initiative, we will add more clients and stakeholders into our roster for practical collaboration. The local entrepreneurs will become our new Clients and community members as our partners. The Municipality officials we will deal with should be duly respected yet politely challenged to discuss our concept with technological solution for shifting from non-biodegradable to biodegradable plastics. We will serve the municipalities as their helping hands. In return, the municipalities may become the collaborators and promoters to support the local plastics entrepreneurs. 

In our team, we have Engineers, a community trainer, Field researcher, Environment interns, who will bring about their knowledge and skills for the noble cause. They will also gradually learn on how to synergize the efforts. They will be further oriented for this initiative for how to communicate, how to generate evidences and how to prepare concise and precise reports. These are the basic skills and strategies which need to be adjusted as the initiative progresses. 

In a nutshell, we will try to integrate the knowledge by putting our solution on to the table for dialogue and collaboration among all the concerned. Lastly, we will approach the central government units (Ministries) with evidences and feedback reports to think about the policy shift with a new paradigm in the field of plastic waste management. The inclusiveness doesn't end here. We can go further to collaborate with research institutes and academic institutions. 

Below is a list of relevant candidates who are highly interested to provide direct support to the Team Lead in the process of execution of this initiative:

1. Mr. Ranjan Prasad Paudel, Sociologist and Entrepreneurship Development Trainer (16 years experience). 

2. Mr. Naresh Suwal, Water Resource Management (7 years)

3. Ms. Sarita Khanal, Civil Engineer /Business Development/ Law (5 years) 

4. Mr. Sechan Pandit, Social Work / IT support (3 years experience)

As per need, we will also invite relevant other subject matter experts, industry/technology experts, social mobilization experts and environmental management experts. Of course, a groups of fresh graduates and interns from environmental science field will be formed to contribute, learn more and engage in this initiative. These interns and fresh/young graduates will drive this initiative to expand the practice and knowledge to wider society. The number of interested persons in relevant expertise may increase and we will maintain an active roster of those who are working and who are interested to join in. There will be opportunities for interns/fresh graduates and experts from abroad (including MIT students) as volunteers to come to Nepal and support for this great Initiative. 

The business model is simple. We are not expecting any significant profit here out of this specific initiative. Our aim here is to establish strong working relationship through this networking, technical back-up and promotional activity. This will serve as a kind of marketing opportunity for us. We will provide technical support to the stakeholders at minimum cost which may be set up or finalized through negotiations with local entrepreneurs in witness of the concerned municipalities. This kind of symbiotic relation with them and us will help enhance our visibility and showcase our approach and method for technical services. 

The municipalities host several opportunities and projects with a broad mandate for environmental management. Once they are onboard of this initiative, we will have more opportunity to undertake other projects where our expertise is best recognized. And, we are confident that we can generously work with the stakeholder for this initiative and we will establish high level of trust and recognition in local and central levels both. 

In short, the business model is: Marketing of Biodegradable Plastics Technology > Technical Support for Conversion of the New Plastics Waste to Useful / Harmless Products/Resources > Policy Advocacy through  Application of Motivational Tools > Gtting Success in this Initiative > Winning more Trust and Recognition from Municipalities and Government Entities > Winning more other Projects for our Business Growth > Establishment of our Firm as a Credible Business Institution > Serving the Nation with Pride and Enhanced Knowledge. 

In this Initiative, we will work with minimum cost and sometimes, it may be in a voluntary basis until we earn a good level of trust. However, we think, our technology solution will be accepted / owned by the local entrepreneurs and municipalities. In this best case scenario, we will get direct and indirect benefits through more intensive engagements with paid services for other projects. We won't sell the PLA-based technology. It already exists in the Asia Region. We will just try to link and persuade them positively to apply the technology and try with it for demo and real time use to produce Biodegradable Plastics. Our initiative will be driven by business-based small actions towards radical policy shift at the government level (B2G). 

Just a success in this initiative will be a great success for us and our Clients/Stakeholders will be motivated to procure our technical services in their other projects related to environment, water or wastewater. In addition to the solid waste management related issues, there is a huge opportunity for us to work in water and wastewater sectors which are also facing severe problems due to the technical knowledge gap in the municipalities. Therefore, our business there will flourish once we get real progress in the solid waste management aspect. The solid waste management aspects, and particularly the management of single-use plastics is a burden for them and the prescribed solution will be in their top priority after our technological intervention. 

As mentioned in our Plan for becoming financially sustainable, we believe that the Municipalities we will work with for this Initiative, they will help us to cover our local costs, at least for travel and other reimbursables. Our main goal will be to successfully complete this initiative, the projects that may come then after will be worth for us to undertake. For example, design of wastewater management systems the municipalities are yet to think about, if not in their long term plan. The wastewater management is another aspect which is so far neglected by the municipalities, mainly due to lack of technical capacity and trained experts at their disposal. This is what we expect in near horizon. 

We have been doing with similar startegy for several small municipalities. We provided services to them for baseline and feasibility of solid waste management systems. They funded the projects and we delivered with conventional solutions. We can start working with those municipalities we had worked with. They know us and we are eager to support them. We are in close contact with the offcials. And they have provided us some green signal that new ideas and technologies should be promoted. So far, this indication is only from personal level of municipal officials and entrepreneurs. There is no formal consensus established so far. 

We are confident that we will gain more trust through this collaborative Initiative. Our firm is sustaining through funding from such small scale projects. But we think, this Initiative will help us get a real breakthrough and we can have access to more projects and hence more funds/profits. Getting more profits will allow us to contribute more for institutionalizing mechanisms of building strong public awareness and environmental safeguards towards long-term protection of natural ecosystems and at the same time to prevent human-induced disasters.