학술논문

On the use of household expenditure surveys to monitor mismanaged plastic waste from food packaging in low- and middle-income countries
Document Type
article
Source
Environmental Research Letters, Vol 17, Iss 12, p 124029 (2022)
Subject
domestic waste
food consumption
household expenditure survey
low and middle income countries
mismanaged plastic waste
Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering
TD1-1066
Environmental sciences
GE1-350
Science
Physics
QC1-999
Language
English
ISSN
1748-9326
Abstract
Background: substantial increases in plastic production have resulted in plastics proliferating of in the environment, with subsequent seabed plastic deposition and ingestion by marine fauna. There is an urgent need to monitor mismanaged plastic waste from household consumption. Household expenditure survey analysis has quantified mismanaged plastic waste generated from household packaged (bottled or bagged) water consumption, but not from consumption of other products. Methods: to evaluate whether household expenditure surveys can quantify mismanaged waste from other widely consumed commodities, we quantify mismanaged plastic waste from the domestic consumption of cooking oil alongside packaged water in urban Greater Accra, Ghana, and all cities nationally in Kenya using two household expenditure surveys. Results: household survey-derived estimates indicate packaged water consumption generates considerably more plastic waste than oil packaging in Greater Accra, whereas oil packaging generates more plastic waste than packaged water in urban Kenya. Conclusion: by successfully transferring a survey analysis protocol from packaged water to cooking oil, we conclude that there is ample potential for expenditure surveys to be used internationally to quantify mismanaged plastic waste from households. However, uncertainties affecting mismanaged waste estimates need to be accounted for.