An integrated approach to managing single-use-plastics

Abstract

Societies’ reliance on plastic materials and excessive consumption off Single-Use-Plastics (SUP) associated with poor regulations and conglomeration of plastic waste in the environment has had radical and far-reaching consequences on food chains, strained landfill territory and declined tourism, to name a few. The expanse of these effects suggests that the negative impact of SUP warrants urgent attention. There are urgent calls from the Group of Seven (G7), Group of Twenty (G20) and Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) intergovernmental bodies along with the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals to control the detrimental effects of SUP. This study aimed to develop an Integrated Quality and Environmental Management System (IQEMS) to control the consumption, use and pollution caused by SUP in the South African context. Accordingly, the objectives of this study explored selected quality (ISO 9001:2015) and environmental Standards (ISO 14001:2015) with their applications and a SWOT analysis in order to inform the integration process. This study followed a qualitative research approach and gathered data using a systematic literature review and thematic analyses. Two-hundred and twenty-three articles were selected from different databases such as Pubmed, Web of Science, Emerald, Scopus and Taylor and Francis. Some of the keywords that were used to search the databases were “SUP”, “ISO 9001”, “ISO 14001” “Industry 4.0”, “Risk Management”, “Plastic Pollution”, “Integrated Management Systems” and “SUP regulation”. Following these analyses, the study Benchmarked different legislative and economic strategies undertaken by other countries for both the private and public sector to mitigate the impact of SUP and developed an integrated management system (IQEMS). Thereafter, a perception study, using interviews was undertaken with experts to determine the usefulness of the proposed IQEMS. The research concluded that the integrative system was useful and the study presented a way forward for South Africa from the legislative level for both the private and public sectors in the management of SUP. It is envisaged that the integrated system can assist in developing guidelines and protocols for the facilitation of active involvement of municipal management in sustainable programmes. The outcomes of this can spur the development of different niche markets, thereby stimulating employment and the local economy.