Author(s)

EVELYN AMEYAW, EBENEZER LARYEA

Abstract

Plastic pollution presents acute environmental, public health and socio-economic challenges across the Global South, where rapid urbanisation and weak waste management systems intensify its impacts. In Ghana, the accumulation of single-use plastic waste has contributed to recurrent flooding in urban spaces, environmental degradation and the disruption of economic livelihoods. These consequential effects of plastic waste pollution in Ghana expose the limits of recent policy responses that focus primarily on waste management reform. While plastic alternatives and non-plastic substitutes are increasingly promoted as solutions, there is limited clarity on the types of evidence required to design regulatory and commercialisation frameworks that are both environmentally effective and socially just, as part of a larger effort to advance the transition away from single-use plastics. This paper addresses that gap by employing a theoretical framework to identify the evidentiary foundations necessary for regulating and commercialising plastic alternatives and non-plastic substitutes. This approach highlights the categories of empirical evidence that policymakers ought to consider to ensure the transition from problematic single-use plastics does not exacerbate existing environmental harms, social exclusions or socio-economic inequalities. Using Ghana as a case study, the paper demonstrates how different justice perspectives – distributive, procedural, recognition-based, capabilities and ecological – highlight distinct evidentiary factors for policymakers to consider in advancing the adoption of plastic alternatives and non-plastic substitutes. The paper’s main contribution is an evidence map to guide the development of regulatory and commercialisation frameworks for plastic alternatives and non-plastic substitutes. Its originality lies in its re-framing of policy approaches to the regulation and commercialisation of plastic alternatives and non-plastic substitutes, as one that asks what specific kinds of evidence such policies should be built on.

Keywords

plastic pollution, Global South, Ghana, commercialisation, plastic alternatives, non-plastic substitutes, policy, framework, justice