Fishing for Litter – A Market-Actor-Network Perspective on Marine Plastic Waste Management

This PhD project focuses on the evolution of markets for recycled materials with a specific interest in marine plastic waste management and investigates the development of utilization pathways of marine plastic litter using a market-actor-network perspective.
From the about 330 million metric tons of plastic produced annually, around 8 million metric tons enters the ocean, causing severe environmental degradation. According to prognoses, the amount of marine plastic waste will double over the next few decades, inducing enormous consequences for the ecosystem. The PhD project argues that markets for the potential utilization of ocean plastics – recycling, energy recovery, reuse and landfilling – have a key role in possible solutions for this environmental challenge. Following the approaches of economic sociology and evolutionary economics, the project describes markets as social networks, developing through the interaction of economic actors. The aim of the dissertation is to reconstruct the dynamics in the evolution of markets for the utilization of ocean plastics, promoting the theoretical and conceptual basis of the circular economy and identifying governance mechanisms fostering this innovation. In particular, the research focuses on European market networks for ocean plastics collected in the North-East Atlantic region, including the North Sea. The market-actor-network perspective on the utilization of marine plastic litter involves several diverse actors, including not only businesses, but also governments and civil society actors. Therefore, a governance perspective complements the existing approaches of economic sociology and environmental economics. The empirical analysis is framed by a case study approach, based on existing initiatives for the recycling of marine plastic waste in Europe, supported by secondary materials and interviews. The expected results of the PhD research may contribute to the solutions of one of today’s most acute environmental issues.