Plastics in a circular economy: mitigating the ambiguity of widely-used terms from stakeholders consultation

DOI

This dataset is associated with a study which aims to examine, through stakeholders consultation, the widely used definitions of four terms related to plastics sustainability: ‘bio-based plastics', ‘bioplastics’, ‘biodegradable plastics’ and ‘plastics recycling’ and to mitigate their potential ambiguity for diverse scientific communities and sectors of activity. For the three terms ‘bio-based plastics', ‘biodegradable’ and ‘recycling’, consolidated definitions were elaborated based on the feedback of online survey and analysis of the pro and con arguments given by face-to-face interviews with 18 experts followed by an online survey of 122 stakeholders. Acceptance of the consolidated definitions was higher than the official ones with an increase of acceptance from 43 to 81% for bio-based plastics, from 47 to 61% for biodegradable plastics, and from 28 to 60 % for plastics recycling. The terms ‘biodegradable’ and ‘recycling’ remain ambiguous even after consolidation of the definition.This highlights that more discussions are necessary to achieve a consensual and fair definition of such complex properties and mechanisms. In the term ‘Bioplastics’ the prefix ‘bio’, referring either to the origin of the resources or the end of life of the material, remains difficult to understand and we prefer to advise against its use, especially with non-expert people (e.g. consumers and the public at large), in favour of the use of ‘bio-based plastics’ or ‘biodegradable plastics’.

Limesurvey, 3

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.15454/UUEIQN
Metadata Access https://entrepot.recherche.data.gouv.fr/oai?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_datacite&identifier=doi:10.15454/UUEIQN
Provenance
Creator Buche, Patrice ORCID logo; Aubin, Sophie ORCID logo; Beaugrand, Johnny ORCID logo; Berteloot, Marie ORCID logo; Boutrou, Rachel ORCID logo; Gontard, Nathalie ORCID logo; Guillard, Valérie ORCID logo
Publisher Recherche Data Gouv
Contributor Buche, Patrice; National research institute for agriculture food and environment; University of Montpellier; Entrepôt-Catalogue Recherche Data Gouv
Publication Year 2021
Funding Reference TRANSFORM Division of Science for Food, Bio- products and Waste Engineering
Rights etalab 2.0; info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess; https://spdx.org/licenses/etalab-2.0.html
OpenAccess true
Contact Buche, Patrice (INRAE)
Representation
Resource Type Dataset
Format application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
Size 50640
Version 1.2
Discipline Chemistry; Geosciences; Engineering Sciences; Construction Engineering and Architecture; Earth and Environmental Science; Engineering; Environmental Research; Materials Science and Engineering; Natural Sciences; Food Safety