Plastic pollution and the open burning of plastic wastes

Abstract

Most of the countries
where such burning is widespread have laws and policies in place against it; open burning continues nevertheless.
In this article, using data from ethnographic fieldwork in urban and rural sites in India, Indonesia, the
Philippines, and Zambia, we examine local practices of open burning and investigate why regulations to tackle it
have proven largely ineffective. Adopting a harm reduction approach, we then suggest preliminary measures to
mitigate the health risks of open burning by targeting those plastics and packaging types that are most toxic
when burned.

Full text

Global Environmental Change 80 (2023) 102648
0959-3780/© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Plastic pollution and the open burning of plastic wastes
Gauri Pathak
a
,
*
, Mark Nichter
b
, Anita Hardon
c
, Eileen Moyer
d
, Aarti Latkar
a
,
Joseph Simbaya
e
, Diana Pakasi
f
, Efenita Taqueban
g
, Jessica Love
h
a
Department of Global Studies, Aarhus University, Denmark
b
School of Anthropology, University of Arizona, USA
c
Knowledge, Technology, and Innovation Chair Group, Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands
d
Department of Anthropology, University of Amsterdam, and Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development, The Netherlands
e
Institute of Economic and Social Research, University of Zambia, Zambia
f
Centre for Gender and Sexuality Studies, Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia
g
Department of Anthropology, University of the Philippines Diliman, The Philippines
h
Centre for Social Science and Global Health, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
ARTICLE INFO
Keywords:
Plastic pollution
Open burning of wastes
Plastic wastes
Toxicity
Public health
ABSTRACT
The open burning of plastic wastes is a practice that is highly prevalent across the globe, toxic to human and
environmental health, and a critical—but often overlooked—aspect of plastic pollution. Most of the countries
where such burning is widespread have laws and policies in place against it; open burning continues never-
theless. In this article, using data from ethnographic eldwork in urban and rural sites in India, Indonesia, the
Philippines, and Zambia, we examine local practices of open burning and investigate why regulations to tackle it
have proven largely ineffective. Adopting a harm reduction approach, we then suggest preliminary measures to
mitigate the health risks of open burning by targeting those plastics and packaging types that are most toxic
when burned.
1. Introduction
In 2019, an article in the New York Times led with the headline, “To
Make this Tofu, Start by Burning Toxic Plastic” (Paddock 2019b). Based
on data from an environmental report, it described the use of waste
plastics as fuel for tofu businesses in Tropodo, Indonesia. The article
quickly captured international attention. Plastic scrap is plentiful in
Tropodo because it is shipped there, much of it from the USA, ostensibly
for recycling. Small-scale tofu makers within Tropodo burn low-grade
plastic waste as fuel to create the steam that turns soybean milk into
tofu. They then donate the ashes to farmers to be used as fertilizer.
Studies have documented alarming levels of toxicants, such as dioxins
and polychlorinated biphenyls, in the soil and in the eggs of free-range
chickens in the area (Petrlik et al., 2019).
A month after that article, a follow-up detailed how the Indonesian
government was tacitly allowing the practice to continue: “Rather than
enforce a ban on the burning of waste plastic, much of which came until
recently from the United States, the Ministry of Environment and
Forestry appointed a panel of Indonesian experts to counter the report
released last month by Indonesian and international environmental
groups” (Paddock 2019a). As this article notes, Indonesia has existing
laws against the open burning of plastic wastes. Why, then, were they
still being thus burned? And why was the focus on the burning of plastic
wastes in Indonesia rather than on the export of those wastes from the
USA? Neither of these two aspects—the open burning of plastic wastes,
predominantly in the Global South, and the shaming of populations
there for what is, in fact, a global plastic waste crisis—is novel to this
case.
The open burning of plastic wastes—which we dene as the burning
of waste plastics in open res without managing for the emission of
byproducts, such as gases and ash, into the ambient air or soil
i
—is
widespread across the globe. It occurs even in the Global North
ii
but is
especially prevalent among low and middle-income countries (LMICs) in
the Global South. Estimates of the scale of open burning among LMICs
* Corresponding author at: Jens Chr. Skous Vej 7, Aarhus 8000C, Denmark.
E-mail address: gauri@cas.au.dk (G. Pathak).
i
Formal management—as in incinerators—need not mean effective management, and the line between controlled and uncontrolled open burning can be hazy;
Tridibesh Dey elaborates on this in a forthcoming publication.
ii
There have been reports of the practice in Estonia (Maasikmets et al., 2016), Hungary (Hoffer et al., 2020), and Poland (Cie´
slik and Fabia´
nska 2021).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Global Environmental Change
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/gloenvcha
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102648
Received 2 August 2022; Received in revised form 6 January 2023; Accepted 4 February 2023

Global Environmental Change 80 (2023) 102648
2
range from around 40 % to 65 % of total municipal solid waste (Chris-
tian et al., 2010; Velis and Cook 2021; Wiedinmyer, Yokelson, and
Gullett 2014). Plastic waste is growing exponentially alongside plastic
production, and plastics form a signicant and ever-growing proportion
of burned trash.
A signicant source of air pollution, the open burning of mixed
wastes produces a variety of adverse environmental and human health
effects. Plastics are a particularly problematic waste stream when it
comes to open burning; a study attributed 90 % of black carbon emitted
from burning wastes to polyethylene terephthalate and polystyrene, two
types of plastics (Reyna-Bensusan et al., 2019). The open burning of
plastics is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, respiratory
issues, neurological disorders, nausea, skin rashes, numbness or tingling
in the ngers, headaches, memory loss, and confusion (Adetona et al.,
2020; Azoulay et al., 2019; Irianti and Prasetyoputra 2018; Kov´
ats et al.,
2022; Velis and Cook 2021; Verma et al., 2016; Wiedinmyer, Yokelson,
and Gullett 2014). Some toxic emissions, such as polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons, have been linked to cancer and birth defects (Balcom,
Cabrera, and Carey 2021). Ash from open burning contaminates the soil
and enters groundwater and the food chain. Plastic packaging, which
accounts for approximately 40 % of global plastics produced, frequently
contains additives “such as llers, plasticizers, ame retardants, color-
ants, stabilizers, lubricants, foaming agents, and antistatic agents” in
addition to adhesives and coatings (Groh et al., 2019: 3255). Additives
containing metals, including cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, co-
balt, tin, and zinc, are particularly dangerous (Groh et al., 2019: 3264).
When we think of plastic pollution—which has come to global
prominence as an urgent environmental challenge—we rarely think of
the open burning of plastics. The focus, within the media and public
discourses, tends to be on marine plastics, plastic litter, and micro-
plastics (e.g., Pathak and Nichter 2021a). The phenomenon has not
elicited much detailed social and behavioral research either. Most
countries where open burning is widespread have legislation in place
against the practice—why, then, does it continue unabated? In this
article, we investigate this discrepancy through ethnographic eldwork
in India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Zambia. We selectively high-
light examples of local patterns of open burning in these countries to
make the case for the open burning of plastics as a critical—but largely
overlooked—dimension of plastic pollution and a global health and
development problem. Tracing the problem of plastic wastes back to
unbridled plastic production, we go on to describe measures—beyond
bans on open burning—to mitigate the most toxic aspects of this
problem.
2. Methods and theoretical orientation
The cases featured here are drawn from long-term observations in
diverse communities in India by the rst and second authors. These were
augmented by more targeted pilot eldwork by members of our “Plastic
Lives” consortium—a group of social science scholars investigating
human–plastic entanglements throughout the plastic lifecycle. In India,
ethnographic observation and unstructured interviews with those
engaged in open burning were conducted in Arunachal Pradesh (Roing),
Maharashtra (Dhule, Kolhapur, Mumbai, Pune, Talegaon), and Telan-
gana (Hyderabad). This was supplemented with eldnotes from long-
term observations in Gujarat (Kutch), Maharashtra (Mumbai, Tale-
gaon), Karnataka (Dakshin Kanara), and Uttar Pradesh (Lucknow)
(Pathak and Nichter 2019; Pathak and Nichter 2021b). Building on in-
sights from India, our consortium developed a guide for focused
ethnographic research on community and household burning practices.
This guide was applied (December 2021–July 2022) in purposively
selected communities in Zambia, the Philippines, and Indone-
sia—countries that differ in terms of policies against open burning. As a
result of varied and dynamic COVID-19-related restrictions, the eld-
work occurred in communities that the country researchers could access.
In Indonesia, a focused ethnographic study was conducted by social
science students from the Universitas Indonesia in three peri-urban
communities located within a 50 km range from Jakarta: Bogor Dis-
trict (Citayam), Tangerang City (North Paninggilan), and Depok City
(Cinangka, Sawangan). In each community, students conducted ten
ethnographic interviews with those regularly engaged in burning, waste
activists, local authorities, and private landll operators. Those who
regularly burn waste were asked to map out areas in their communities
where waste was burned. The students validated their ndings in six
focus group discussions (two per site).
In the Philippines, the focused guide was applied by anthropology
students at the University of the Philippines. These students conducted
eldwork in their home communities (they were attending classes
remotely at the time) in nine towns within the provinces of Tarlac, La
Union, Eastern Samar, Laguna, South Cotabato, Aklan, and Dinagat
Islands and within two towns in the vicinity of Metro Manila. They too
conducted ten ethnographic interviews in each site and validated their
ndings in two focus group discussions. Participants were also asked to
mark spaces in their immediate vicinity where they disposed of waste as
part of a mapping exercise.
In Zambia, the focused ethnographies were carried out in ve com-
munities in the vicinity of Lusaka by two social science researchers from
the University of Zambia. They conducted six interviews in each com-
munity, which were augmented by mapping areas where waste was
burned. Participants were drawn from rural (low density) and urban
(low, medium, and high density) areas and included low-, medium-, and
high-income earners. The ethnographers in each of the country studies
selected respondents who have experience with managing plastic waste,
including waste collectors and workers at local waste disposal sites. We
are writing up our focused ethnographic method for studying open
burning practices in an article for Practicing Anthropology, in which we
outline our interview guide, describe how we combine cartography and
ethnography, and outline the ethics safeguards (i.e., assurances of ano-
nymity) needed when studying open burning practices in countries
where such burning is prohibited.
As anthropologists working at the interface of medical and envi-
ronmental anthropology and science and technology studies, we posi-
tion ourselves within an emerging transdisciplinary eld dedicated to
the study of cumulative toxicities as a feature of the Anthropocene.
Studies within this eld examine how entanglements between chemicals
and humans have shaped ways of being and living in the contemporary
world (e.g., Abrahms-Kavunenko 2021; Alaimo 2010; Checker 2007;
Geissler and Prince 2020; Hardon 2021; Lee 2020; Liboiron, Tironi, and
Calvillo 2018; MacLeish and Wool 2018; Murphy 2008; Nading 2020;
Perczel 2021; Roberts 2017). Anthropological work on waste has
emphasized the importance of ethnography in providing nuanced nar-
ratives of toxic waste management and in highlighting the failure of
interventions to respond in locally salient ways. Research in Kampala,
Uganda, by Jacob Doherty, for example, illustrates how heterogeneous
policies that play out on the national and municipal levels allow for the
amplication of what he terms the “politics of cleanliness” embedded in
both moral and materials worlds (Doherty 2022:4). His work suggests
that state-centric solutions that are increasingly shaped by global sus-
tainability policies may have limited impact on local waste management
practices, including the burning of plastics and other toxic wastes. Even
more compelling, Little’s (2021) ethnography of e-waste management in
Ghana shows the ways that international policies and bilateral trade
agreements often compound the problem of the accumulation of toxic
waste in places where urban unemployment is experienced by national
and municipal policymakers as a more pressing issue. The recovery of
metals such as copper, silver, and gold from e-waste leads to a near-
steady burn of toxic res that are not only tolerated but held up as an
example of job creation; our consortium’s work on South Africa has
documented a similar theme (Musariri and Moyer 2022). Little draws
upon Marder’s (2020) term “pyro-politics” to conceptualize this com-
plex interweaving of environmental, social, and economic reasoning
that leads to a policy and legal domain that is patchy at best.
G. Pathak et al.

Global Environmental Change 80 (2023) 102648
3
Elsewhere, we have referred to heterogenous plastics policies as
“leaky by design” to highlight the ways that regulatory loopholes are
exploited by producers, users, and those responsible for disposal to
escape efforts to prevent ecological and human damage (Hardon et al.,
forthcoming). Green regulatory measures in one place (i.e., Europe or
China), when combined with global circuits of production and trade,
may result in “spillage” into other regions. Given these realities, we
recommend a harm reduction approach for local interventions aimed at
targeting those plastics and plastic packaging types that are most per-
nicious when burned.
3. Policies against open burning
The open burning of plastic wastes occurs even in countries with
policies aimed at such open burning. We saw frequent and pervasive
burning across our eld sites despite laws in place against the practice.
In India, the burning of plastic wastes in the open was banned in 2013
(National Green Tribunal 2013). In response to the lack of imple-
mentation of this ban, a 2016 judgment set up nes of Indian Rupees
5,000 (around USD 64) for “simple” burning and 25,000 (around USD
320) for bulk waste burning (The Hans India 2016). In Indonesia, in our
eld site in Tangerang, the burning of wastes containing plastics is
prohibited under the city regulation number 3 of 2009, article 19; ac-
cording to article 24, it carries a maximum imprisonment of three
months or a maximum ne of Indonesian Rupiahs 50,000,000 (around
USD 3,300) (Tangerang City 2009). The city regulation is in accordance
with law number 18 of 2008 concerning waste management, article 29,
which prohibits open burning that is not in accordance with the tech-
nical requirements for waste management in the country (Republic of
Indonesia 2008). In the Philippines, the Clean Air Act of 1999 (Republic
Act 8749) includes a ban on the incineration of waste, and the Ecological
Solid Waste Management Act of 2001 (Republic Act 9003), sets the legal
parameters for the country’s waste management, waste prevention, and
recycling (Republic of the Philippines 1999, 2001). These laws are
supplemented by ordinances by local government units. On the island of
Panay, for example, we were told that the municipality penalizes waste
burning with a ne of Philippine Pesos 2,000 (around USD 37) and one
day of community service. In Zambia, the Statutory Instrument Number
65 of the Solid Waste Regulation and Management Act, 2018, identies
the intentional open burning of any wastes and the burying of non-
organic wastes as punishable offenses (Government Republic of
Zambia 2018).
Our research revealed four key, often overlapping, themes impli-
cated in the lack of efcacy of these policies. The most pervasive of these
were 1) gaps in waste management services, including the absence of
waste collection, constraints posed by the costs or time required to ac-
cess such collection, frictions between various arms of waste manage-
ment services, and a lack of effective ways of dealing with waste after
collection. Related to this was 2) a focus on the aesthetics of place. Such
a focus often resulted in 3) policies or interventions aimed at tackling
plastic pollution that highlight litter and end up encouraging open
burning. Overall, these dimensions were inuenced by 4) assessments
made by locals regarding the harms related to various ways of handling
wastes. We now examine each of these four aspects further.
4. Gaps in waste management services
A vast body of literature within waste management and environ-
mental science has documented open burning as a common method for
dealing with waste in locations with limited or inadequate waste
collection services (e.g., Ajay et al., 2022; Ayelerua 2020; Chaudhary
et al., 2021; Ferronato and Torretta 2019; Kov´
ats et al., 2022; Naidja,
Ali-Khodja, and Khardi 2018; Velis and Cook 2021; Wiedinmyer,
Yokelson, and Gullett 2014). Many communities, whether urban, peri-
urban, or rural, lack waste collection coverage. It is not uncommon for
households and neighborhoods that are overburdened with wastes to be
left to fend for themselves. Meanwhile, with economic development,
consumption-oriented economies, and exponential growth in plastic
packaging (not least as a result of contemporary manufacturing and
supply chain infrastructures; see also Hawkins 2013, 2018), there has
been an explosion in volumes of trash, especially non-biodegradable
trash that lingers over long durations. Approximately two billion peo-
ple worldwide lack access to solid waste collection services, and they
dispose of their trash through burying, burning, or dumping into wa-
terways or open ground (Reyna-Bensusan, Wilson, and Smith 2018). Our
eldwork conrmed that open burning was most commonly used as a
waste management technique when waste collection was absent, but it
also provided other ethnographic insights into this issue.
We found that waste was burned even in areas with waste collection
coverage because of the costs or wait times posed by these services. For
example, in Indonesia, burning emerged as the most common way of
getting rid of plastic wastes or reducing waste volumes in all three of our
eld sites, despite these sites being served by private waste collection.
Open burning was seen as an option for those unwilling to pay the
monthly collection fee of between Indonesian Rupiahs 25,000–50,000
(approx. USD 2–4). In some cases, people reported burning small plastics
along with organic wastes in their yard and setting aside larger plastic
wastes for trash pickup. Households burned their mixed wastes every
two days, either in the mornings between 10 and 11 am, after household
cleaning, or between 4 and 5 pm, upon returning from work. Waste
burning was also carried out at a community level by mutual agreements
between households within a neighborhood. In these cases, households
would be informed of the burning so that they could ensure that clothes
were not left on clotheslines to be exposed to smoke. In the monsoons, an
accelerant, such as gasoline, was used to ignite damp wastes.
In Zambia, we heard of the burning of wastes not just as a result of
garbage collection services being deemed unaffordable but also because
collection was not frequent enough. As one community member noted:
We burn unwanted plastic waste here. Every day after sweeping the
surroundings we pick up the waste and burn it. Some of the plastics
are not strong enough for reuse, easily tear up, therefore we burn
them. Burning is not a good practice, but here we have no choice but
to burn the plastic waste because waste is only collected once a week
and the plastics easily ll up the trash bags. So, in order to avoid that
and to prevent plastic from being blown by the wind in all directions
and messing up the surroundings, we burn them.
This frustration with long periods between garbage collection was
echoed in the Philippines, where one resident put it succinctly: “the
garbage man hardly ever comes by.”
The contrasting interests and agendas of those involved in waste
collection, sorting, and disposal also encouraged open burning. In the
city of Dhule, India, a doctor running his own hospital recounted how
mixed waste was burned in the open as a result of a lack of coordination
between different arms of the municipal services. Municipal sweepers
would clear out trash (leaves and branches but also littered plastic
bottles and packaging waste) from the city’s gutters and collect that
trash into small piles. However, these piles were erratically collected by
the thekedaar, or contracted sanitary ofcial. (Our interlocutor attrib-
uted this to corruption within the municipal body in the awarding of
contracts.) The trash would get dispersed by winds or rain in the
meantime, and the sweepers (typically women of the Dalit, that is the
most marginalized, castes)—would be blamed. To avoid this, the
sweepers would set the piles ablaze every week or so. Often, the doctor
explained, the gathered trash would not be collected (nor set alight) for
more than 4–5 days. When the trash piles built up near his hospital and
started smelling, he would ask a nurse to set a match to them. Ninety
percent of the time, he said, the piles would catch re without an
accelerant; otherwise, they would use “rockel” (kerosene). In Tanger-
ang, Indonesia, we similarly heard garbage collectors—who, as part of
the informal economy, sell waste with scrap value—complain that local
government ofcers charged them illegal fees to take the remaining
G. Pathak et al.

Global Environmental Change 80 (2023) 102648
4
wastes to the dumping ground; they practiced open burning to escape or
reduce these fees.
Such frictions were also implicated in large-scale res at dumping
grounds in India. Many countries in the Global South, such as India, rely
on dumping grounds—rather than scientically managed landlls—to
house wastes; around 93 % to 66 % of the municipal solid waste in
LMICs is deposited in dump sites (Sharma and Jain 2020). In 2016, a re
raged at Mumbai’s Deonar dumping ground—the city’s largest dumping
ground—for a week (Earth Observatory 2016; Pinto 2016). Although
that conagration was novel in its scale and duration, it was not an
isolated incident. Fires at dumping grounds are common, and Deonar
regularly experiences them. Spontaneous res can result from highly
ammable landll gases, which are the byproducts of the degradation of
organic wastes, interacting with ammable plastic wastes in places with
high ambient temperatures. However, several interlocutors in Mumbai,
especially those working in the environmental or social justice spaces,
suggested that res at the Deonar dumping ground are often set inten-
tionally, as tactics in turf wars between gangs involved in the scrap trade
or to allow valuable metal scrap to surface from garbage heaps. These
suggestions were echoed in the media coverage of such res (e.g., Sinha
2018).
Fires at dumping grounds can also be set intentionally to reduce
waste volumes. In Zambia, we heard of constant burning at the Chunga
dumpsite outside the city of Lusaka. “The re at the landll [dumpsite]
has been burning for years, and it is rekindled every time the wind
blows…That re never burns out even during the rainy season,” an
interlocutor complained. Similarly, in Indonesia, we were told that the
owners of three private dumping grounds burned wastes daily. Burning
took place in the afternoons and evenings, after wastes had dried in the
sun. Such burning helped prevent garbage piles toppling over, hardened
the soil on uneven land, and reduced the amount of waste in the
dumping grounds. In the Philippines, prior to the passage of the Clean
Air Act, dumping grounds all over the country were constantly burning.
Low awareness regarding the prohibition against burning meant that
interlocutors expressed sentiments such as, “If I don’t burn my trash,
they will just put it in the dumping ground,” implying that it would be
burned anyway. This was not unique to the Philippines; we heard
several community members say that wastes would be burned at
dumpsites anyway. In the absence of alternatives to burning in order to
deal with ever-increasing volumes of waste at dumping grounds, in-
terlocutors saw small-scale burning as a more convenient, cheaper op-
tion. As we elaborate later, they also saw it as safer than the large-scale
burning that occurred at dumping grounds.
5. Focus on aesthetics of place
The lack of affordable, frequent, and effective waste collection and
disposal was complemented by an emphasis on aesthetics and cleanli-
ness in encouraging the burning of mixed wastes. In our sites in
Indonesia, open burning was associated with mosque or community
cleaning activities, usually conducted on Fridays. Friday, as a holy day,
was considered auspicious for cleaning. Community members would
take turns to clean their streets, waterways, and public facilities, with
the wastes burned thereafter. These ndings are in line with a study by
Phelan et al. (2020) in a coastal community in Indonesia, which noted
that village-level clean ups resulted in increased plastic burning. An-
thropologist Lukas Forte (personal communication, 2021) also observed
open burning on the island of Sumbawa as a part of clean-up events.
Similarly, in Dakshin Kanara, India, wastes, mostly plastic pack-
aging, were dumped by travelers along roadsides or rail tracks. When
these wastes accumulated to the point of becoming an eyesore, they
were periodically gathered up and set on re by various community
groups. Such activities occurred as part of routine clean-up activities.
Clean-up activities that focused on public spaces and culminated in
burning were especially pronounced in tourist destinations. Tourism is
vital to the economy of many LMICs, and litter undermines the tourist
industry’s efforts to market destinations (Williams et al., 2016). Plastic
litter generated by both high consumption tourism and g/local marine
ows (in the case of beaches) is a constant challenge (Hayati et al.,
2020). In the popular tourist destinations that we observed in South and
Southeast Asia, piles of mostly plastic litter in tourist spaces were typi-
cally raked up and burned early each morning by restaurant/hotel
managers and local vendors to maintain a pristine “front stage” image.
Meanwhile, spaces frequented more by locals than tourists were left
littered (see also Kerber and Kramm 2021 for similar observations in
Vietnam).
6. Policies targeting plastic pollution
Policies and interventions that are ostensibly aimed at tackling
plastic pollution were also revealed to inadvertently encourage open
burning. For example, the state of Maharashtra, India, put in place a
single-use plastic ban in 2018. Our ethnographic study in a residential
complex located on the outskirts of a town in the state found that the
local governing body, the gram panchayat, refused to collect Styrofoam.
Styrofoam is a type of polystyrene, known locally as thermocol. Ther-
mocol had been included under the single-use plastic ban in Mahara-
shtra. However, it was still entering the complex as it was being used for
packing, especially for goods bought online or shipped in from outside
the state. With no way of disposing of the polystyrene, residents were
forced to burn it at the peripheries of the complex. The ban, aimed at the
reduction of plastic pollution, led to another form of pollution—the open
burning of polystyrene, which produces the toxic styrene gas.
Global, governmental, and media messages highlight plastic litter as
a problem, and this has meant that other dimensions of plastic pollution
get elided. Most policies and interventions aimed at plastic pollution
focus on the aesthetic dimension, that is, on plastic litter (Pathak 2023).
Sensitization to plastic litter also ends up, in many cases, favoring
burning (Aarti Latkar and Gauri Pathak elaborate upon this in a forth-
coming publication). In India, campaigns such as the Clean India Mis-
sion—a national program aimed at waste management and the cleaning
of India’s public spaces—have sensitized the public to litter and visible
waste. Under the Mission, local governance bodies are incentivized to
reduce the volumes of waste going to dumping grounds (by increasing
recycling and composting); we heard that municipal ofcials and em-
ployees were therefore engaging in open burning. In Arunachal Pradesh,
India, we similarly observed a guide for a trekking group gather the
plastics he encountered on a trail and set them alight. When asked, he
said he had been inspired by the Clean India Mission.
In Citayam, Indonesia, we found that the local government had put
up signs warning residents not to throw plastic trash into the Ciliwung
river. Though households were plied by garbage collectors provided by
the local government, the dumping ground that received wastes was
over capacity. Moreover, garbage collectors would not handle litter
dumped by passersby on roadsides. As a result, the community built
small-scale kilns (tungku sampah) to burn household and community
waste; one kiln was located near the river. Here again, an intervention
aimed at keeping the river free of plastic wastes led to the burning of
those wastes instead; the river was still being polluted but just in a
different way.
7. Assessments of risks and harms
In the earlier paragraphs, we laid out the constraints faced by com-
munities and individuals in disposing of their plastic wastes. Against this
highly constrained waste management landscape, residents individually
and collectively make assessments regarding the harms posed by the
alternatives available to them. In some cases, these assessments are
based on a lack of awareness regarding the dangers posed by the emis-
sions and ash resulting from the burning of plastics. Thus, although the
smoke and smell from burning were seen by our interlocutors as both-
ersome, the practice was not viewed as especially toxic. In the
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Global Environmental Change 80 (2023) 102648
5
Philippines, siga is the practice of morning and/or afternoon yard
cleaning within the country; swept up leaves and litter are burned.
Burning is thought to not only be an effective way of dealing with yard
waste but also to serve as natural fumigation—the smoke keeps
mosquitos and other pests away. The smoke is also likened to carbon,
which plants are thought to need. Accustomed to burning yard waste,
residents, particularly of rural areas, saw no harm in adding household
wastes, including plastics, to the mix. In Indonesia, we heard from
community members that the ashes from burning wastes—even plastic
wastes—were thought to make plants grow better and used as fertilizer.
In India, the burning of agricultural stubble is common, and in-
terlocutors recounted similar practices in rural elds to deal with lit-
tered plastics. Discarded plastic bags are used to ward off birds, and
plastic wastes are often carried into elds by winds or rain and accu-
mulate there. After the harvest, farmers set re to the stubble, and lit-
tered plastics get burned as well. Cultural notions of re as puricatory
mean that such burning is seen as relatively harmless. In Hinduism, re
is “an agency of destruction leading to possible rebirth” (Rosin 2000:
395). Thus, not only re but also the ashes it leaves behind are
considered both puried and purifying (Rosin 2000: 362). Fire is
thought to remove elements from the cosmological food chain, pre-
venting undigestible elements from entering ecologies. It therefore
forms a seemingly ideal method of dealing with troublesome non-
biodegradable wastes such as plastics. These attitudes to re have also
hampered a full appreciation among the public for the dangers of the
inhalation of smoke from agricultural burning and indoor mud stoves.
We also encountered the use of small plastics as re starters for
household wood-red chul (mud stoves) in Maharashtra. “Patdishi pet
dhartaya plastic mula [It catches re instantly because of the plastic],” an
interlocutor in Kolhapur explained. The women who described such use
were typically from lower-income groups; although they had gas con-
nections that they used for everyday cooking, other chores, such as
heating bathwater, relied on cheaper rewood. In the cities of Mumbai
and Lucknow, we also observed workers on the night shift in the winters,
especially night watchmen, light small bonres by gathering dried
leaves, twigs, and trash together. These bonres included small plastic
packaging wastes, which were not segregated out. In Ngwerere, Zambia,
a school teacher described using plastic packets from small snacks (jig-
gies) as re starters: “We collect them and use them to light cooking res
because they are quite ammable. The re lights up quicker that way.”
In Helen Kaunda, Zambia, they were used to light braziers in the com-
munity. Given the small quantities of plastics being burned, such
burning was not deemed dangerous.
Across our eld sites, even when the burning of mixed wastes was
recognized as harmful, harms were evaluated through the sensorial.
That is, the color of the smoke and the smell were seen as indicators of
harm. Thus, when trash was burned in a pit at the very center of a
housing complex in India, residents complained that they could see and
smell the thick, acrid smoke within their homes. Trash burning was
therefore moved to the peripheries of the complex, even though it was
close to a river. In the Philippines, we were told that when the smoke
produced by burning was dark and the burning pile emitted a strong
odor, people kept away from it, whereas white smoke with a “natural”
odor was considered safe.
Even sensory indices were seen to suggest more of a short-term
bother than a long-term hazard. None of our interlocutors evidenced
concern about the fact that the particulates and toxicants released by
burning plastics can linger in the air for long periods, even after the
smoke and smell have dissipated. This can be compared to perceptions of
harm related to second-hand cigarette smoke—the smoke lingers in the
air for several hours but is not considered dangerous when it can no
longer be smelled (Padmawati et al., 2018). Moreover, frequent and
long-term exposure to smells can lead to olfactory adaptations,
rendering certain smells less perceptible. In Indonesia, interlocutors who
burned their waste stated that none of their family members had expe-
rienced respiratory problems; some coughing was deemed a brief,
“natural consequence” of smoke exposure. Community kilns were
thought to be safe as they directed smoke upwards, away from people.
Similarly, in Zambia, open burning was generally carried out when
neighbors were asleep to avoid people’s exposure to smoke:
There is no harm in burning the plastics because we do it at night and
early in the morning while people are still sleeping…We wait for
people to sleep before we burn the plastic and leaves.
Given the use of the sensorial to assess harm, the volume of plastics
getting burned was key to perceptions of and action against harm.
Across eld sites, people expressed concern about open burning at large
dumping grounds. A Zambian interlocutor stated about res at the
dumping ground, “The problem is that the plastics that are burned
produce fumes which might be responsible for some health problems
some people have in this area…I know of a friend who has been com-
plaining of chest pains for over two years now and he lives opposite the
landll.” In Indonesia, interlocutors differentiated between smaller scale
waste burning, which they saw as acceptable, and burning at dumping
grounds, which they opposed. Fires at dumping grounds were consid-
ered harmful because they produced a haze and brought “strange” and
“strong” chemical odors. Similarly, in India, whereas the small-scale
burning of plastics was tolerated, the res at the Deonar dumping
ground, which involved many more plastics, thicker smoke, and a longer
duration, elicited complaints from city residents. Such an assessment of
harm encouraged small-scale burning as it was seen as less problematic
than (often inevitable) burning at dumping grounds which are over
capacity. Nonetheless, studies suggest that small-scale burning is more
harmful than large-scale burning because people are exposed more
closely and more frequently to the emissions (Ajay et al., 2022).
Against this backdrop, interlocutors spoke of the perceived harms of
letting wastes fester, which was the outcome of not burning those
wastes. In Telangana, India, an interlocutor setting aame a heap of
mixed waste at a temporary dumpsite explained that he did so to
eliminate the stench and to prevent seepage of leachate into the
groundwater and his neighboring eld. He also believed burning would
prevent the spread of germs and infections from the garbage. In Zambia,
concerns about menstrual blood being used in witchcraft led to used
menstrual pads being burned in secret. The piling of ripe diapers be-
tween waste collection was meanwhile thought to be unhygienic and
used diapers were therefore burned.
Concerns regarding hygiene and contagion are particularly salient
when it comes to the disposal of medical waste: incineration is thought
to be best practice by many healthcare professionals because of a belief
that this effectively kills pathogens (e.g., Gupta et al., 2009; Mbongwe,
Mmereki, and Magashula 2008). In Dhule, India, however, our medical
interlocutor expressed reservations regarding the fate of the medical
waste that was collected, purportedly for incineration, from his facil-
ities. Medical waste collected for incineration in Dhule had been found,
he told us, to be openly burned—and the collection fees illegally
pocketed—a few years prior.
However, it was not just the health risks that troubled inter-
locutors—aesthetics was a major focus, in all four countries. As an
interlocutor in Ngwerere, Zambia, explained, “When I seriously come to
think of it, burning plastics causes air pollution. However, we are often
faced with a situation where we have to choose between unsightly
surroundings or burning the plastic waste.” In fact, as described, we
found that sensitization to plastic litter and waste—as a result of global
and local campaigns and policies raising awareness about plastic
pollution and the cleanliness of public spaces—led to community
members conducting clean-up drives and burning wastes. Visible litter
was not just a threat to tourism but also left the sense of a place not being
tended to which distressed community members. Without alternative
ways to manage wastes, open burning was considered a more benign
option.
Finally, it is worth highlighting two aspects related to the enforce-
ment of regulations against open burning. For one, public awareness of
G. Pathak et al.

Global Environmental Change 80 (2023) 102648
6
policies against open burning was relatively low across all our eld sites.
People were not always aware of specic restrictions, even if they had
vaguely heard about them. Secondly, there were pragmatic and social
relational reasons that policies were not stringently enforced. In
Indonesia, for example, some residents who did not burn their trash
were concerned about the smoke or worried that it would worsen family
members’ respiratory disorders. However, they were reluctant to
complain for reasons related to social risk. They wished to avoid conict
that might disrupt social relations. Social relations were also implicated
in community members’ reluctance to complain about open burning at
dump sites; people did not want conict with the kin of those managing
the sites. Furthermore, in contexts in which open burning occurs
because of a lack of feasible alternatives for waste management—or
because of a lack of money to pay for waste collection service-
s—enforcing policies, especially among low-income community mem-
bers, is not viable. It would likely result in community outrage and
political ramications. Concerns about social relations and the micro-
politics of community life in villages and towns make enforcing policies
against open burning problematic. Thus, residents in Panay, the
Philippines, told us that the rules related to open burning were “nego-
tiable” and added that “walang pangil ang batas (the law has no teeth).”
Enforcement consisted of, at best, token gestures.
8. Toward harm reduction
In the face of these local constraints and concerns—and their
rendering of policies against open burning largely unenforceable—what
can be done to reduce the harms of the burning of plastic wastes? First,
two notes of caution. For one, we must recognize that the open burning
of wastes is an act of care. It is undertaken to reduce unsightliness and
risks of contagion and infection. Practices of open burning mark off
spaces as places—as the sites of community attention, concern, and
effort. In fact, throughout our eldwork, we found that spaces where
wastes were left to accumulate were a “no-man’s land”—zones of
abandonment and apathy. Any measures to tackle the harms of open
burning must recognize the labor and local capacities required by the
practice, and interventions must leverage—rather than devalue—these
capacities.
Second, we must recognize that the problem of open burning is not a
problem of unhygienic or ignorant citizens in the Global South. Open
burning is not unique to the Global South. Even the plastic wastes that
are burned in these regions are implicated in global ows of plastics, for
example, through plastics carried by ocean currents and deposited onto
distant seashores or plastic wastes dumped in LMICs under the guise of
recycling. The open burning of plastics is symptomatic of communities
overburdened with the wastes of a global “cannibal” capitalist economy
(Fraser 2022) that revolves around ever-increasing consumption
regardless of its ecological costs. Burdening these communities further,
by raising awareness regarding the harms of burning without providing
locally viable alternatives for waste disposal, will not only prove fruit-
less but is also grossly unfair. Many anti-litter campaigns, for example,
emphasize the removal of litter as normative behavior but fall short of
providing effective, convenient means for disposing of this litter. Indeed,
as we have shown, such campaigns end up encouraging open burning.
Ultimately, then, addressing the harms of the open burning of plastic
wastes will require interventions at the level of not just disposal—the
creation of affordable, reliable, and effective trash collection and end-
stage processing alternatives that build upon local capacities—but also
at the level of production, through a reduction in the manufacturing and
consumption of plastics, a turn toward greater reuse, the use of less toxic
plastic additives, and the phasing out of forms of packaging (e.g., multi-
layer packaging and multi-polymer packaging) and plastics (e.g., poly-
carbonate) that cannot be easily recycled. This may sound utopian and
unpragmatic. It will undoubtedly take several decades to make such a
shift. As we work toward these larger goals, what steps can we take in
the meantime for harm reduction? One place to begin is to focus on those
plastics that are most toxic when burned.
When burned, some plastics are less harmful than other types that
yield emissions and residues linked to severe environmental and human
health problems; see Table 1 (Alabi et al., 2019; Lebek et al., 2005;
McKenna and Hull 2016; Morikawa and Yanai 1989; Sovov´
a et al., 2008;
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 2011; Valavanidis et al., 2008;
Velis and Cook 2021; Verma et al., 2016; Wakeeld 2010; Wheatley
et al., 1993). The burning of Styrofoam (polystyrene) or polyvinyl
chloride (PVC), is, for example, extremely dangerous—such plastics
release especially toxic styrene gas, dioxins, or chlorinated furans when
ignited. Interactions between these plastics and other wastes can also
lead to toxic emissions mixes.
Recognizing the reality that these plastics and packaging types will
likely end up being burned, we recommend 1) reductions in the use of
these plastics and packaging types wherever possible, incentivized
through higher taxation and caps on production, 2) local campaigns
raising awareness about the toxicity of the ash left behind by open
burning to prevent use of this ash as fertilizer, and 3) extended producer
responsibility (EPR) schemes that task manufacturers with collecting
and safely—and under regular monitoring—recycling or disposing of
the post-consumer wastes that result.
Policies related to EPR were introduced in India in 2016, but they
have been criticized for being vague and unclear on several counts,
Table 1
Examples of toxicants released upon the open burning of various plastics.
Type of Plastic Common
Forms
Toxicants Released
Upon Burning
Health Effects
Polyethylene
Terephthalate
(PET or
PETE)
Drink bottles,
cosmetic
packaging,
water bottles
Methane, ethane,
ethyne, formaldehyde,
carbon dioxide, carbon
monoxide, polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons
Mild to moderate
respiratory
irritation,
carcigogenic and
mutagenic
effects
High-Density
Polyethylene
(HDPE)
Shampoo
bottles,
grocery bags,
ower pots,
cereal box
liners
Olens, parafn,
aldehydes, and light
hydrocarbons, carbon
monoxide, polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons
Mild to moderate
respiratory
irritation,
carcigogenic and
mutagenic
effects
Polyvinyl
Chloride
(PVC or
Vinyl)
Drainpipes,
blister packs,
toys, bottles,
and jugs
Carbon monoxide,
dioxins, chlorinated
furans, hydrogen
chloride, polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons
Cancer, birth
defects,
respiratory tract
disorders, etc.
Low-Density
Polyethylene
(LDPE)
Assorted
beverage and
food, frozen
food, frozen
juice, and milk
packaging
Olens, parafn,
aldehydes, and light
hydrocarbons, carbon
monoxide, polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons
Mild to moderate
respiratory
irritation,
carcigogenic and
mutagenic
effects
Polypropylene
(PP)
Medicine,
yogurt,
condiments,
other food and
beverage
packaging
Naphthalene,
methylnaphthalene,
biphenyl, uorene,
phenanthrene,
methylphenanthrene,
anthracene, pyrene, and
benzo[a] uorene,
polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons
Mild to moderate
respiratory
irritation,
carcigogenic and
mutagenic
effects
Polystyrene (PS
or Styrofoam)
Foam cups,
meat trays, egg
cartons, plastic
forks and
spoons,
packaging
ller
Styrene gas, acrolein,
hydrogen cyanide,
polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons
Cancer,
neurotoxicity,
eye and mucous
membrane
damage,
narcosis, and
death in high
doses
Polyurethane
(PU)
Curtains, wood
nishes,
sealants,
adhesives
Carbon monoxide,
hydrogen cyanide,
phosgene
Death in high
doses
G. Pathak et al.

Global Environmental Change 80 (2023) 102648
7
including who is to be held nancially liable (the plastic resin manu-
facturer, the packaging maker, or the brand owner) and to whom they
would be answerable (local or national pollution control boards). The
role of the informal economy and waste pickers within such schemes
was also not entirely clear (Pani and Pathak 2021). Since then, EPR
policy has undergone several renements, and the latest set of amend-
ments has set down targets and timelines for the collection of volumes of
types of plastic wastes and the reuse of recycled materials. Nevertheless,
implementation remains problematic, and third-party monitoring
mechanisms have not been set in place (Shah 2022). We suggest that to
be truly successful, EPR schemes will need to go beyond these measures
and take advantage of local capacities by providing incentives, not just
to waste pickers but also to community members, for the segregation
and return of plastic wastes.
In India, we encountered an environmental initiative termed Safai
Bank (https://safaibank.org) that can serve as an example. As part of this
initiative, students were asked to collect their multi-layer packaging
wastes for use as fuel stock (co-processing) in cement kilns. Burning in
cement kilns can be problematic in India as a result of the inadequate
regulation of emissions, but what we wish to foreground here is the
leveraging of students for waste management. Student volunteers were
provided with certicates and other rewards for their efforts. EPR ini-
tiatives based on local capacities, such as this one, would require an
easily identiable label on these types of packaging and plastics com-
bined with campaigns to create awareness about these labels and about
the EPR schemes.
9. Conclusion
In this article, we have focused on community and household prac-
tices related to the open burning of plastics despite existing laws and
policies meant to discourage those practices. At a time when global and
regional actors are increasingly committed to developing greater
accountability though a global plastics treaty, ethnographic research
can provide insights into the limits of policy-based interventions. This is
especially the case in contexts where waste management is largely
carried out through informal networks that routinely escape governance
attempts and in a world where wastes, plastic and otherwise, are
increasingly exported from wealthy countries to be disposed of, recy-
cled, or processed in LMICs.
Given the increased attention in policymaking to limiting plastic
pollution, as anthropologists of science and technology, we draw atten-
tion to the ways that legal categorizing, in this case, distinguishing be-
tween plastics in and out of place or waste that is properly or mis-
managed, may help to conceal the larger problems of exponential in-
creases in plastic production and distribution, global ows of plastic
waste into marginalized communities, and the limits of plastics’ recy-
clability. The implementation and oversight of policies and laws re-
quires the resources, capacity, infrastructure, and political will to do so.
In practice, our research has shown that governments may nd it dif-
cult to implement policies banning single-use plastics or the open
burning of (plastic) waste for a variety of reasons. They may also
encounter widespread resistance when they try to enforce said policies,
from interests ranging from multinational companies to waste pickers.
We have suggested that while big shifts toward plastic control are
debated, put into practice, and assessed, some initial steps may be taken
in the name of harm reduction. These steps revolve around recognizing
the realities of open burning and focusing on those plastics and pack-
aging types that are the most dangerous to burn. Our embracing of a
harm reduction strategy, as a rst step in tackling open burning, is
pragmatic. We hope it will curb the most toxic aspects of the problem
and lead to public demand for and support of better plastic control
policies that make sense in place. Our reason for this strategy can
perhaps best be summed up in one Zambian interlocutor’s statement,
which was echoed across eld sites: “We burn a lot of plastics because
we are not sure which ones are harmful.” Such statements reference a
desire to know more and a willingness to mitigate harms.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Gauri Pathak: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acqui-
sition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Writing -
original draft, Writing - review & editing. Mark Nichter: Conceptuali-
zation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing - original
draft. Anita Hardon: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding
acquisition, Methodology, Writing - review & editing. Eileen Moyer:
Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology,
Writing - review & editing. Aarti Latkar: Investigation, Writing - orig-
inal draft, Writing - review & editing. Joseph Simbaya: Investigation,
Writing - original draft. Diana Pakasi: Investigation, Writing - original
draft. Efenita Taqueban: Investigation, Writing - original draft. Jessica
Love: Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing nancial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to inuence
the work reported in this paper.
Data availability
Data used is based on eldnotes and ethnographic data; further de-
tails will be published in individual country reports.
Acknowledgments:
The funding for the research was supported by a Carlsberg Founda-
tion Young Researcher Fellowship (CF-20-0151; Project, ‘Plastics and
the Anthropocene: The Bads Associated with the Goods We Consume’)
and by funds from the Centre for Social Science and Global Health at the
University of Amsterdam. Our co-investigator in Indonesia, Irwan
Hidayana, and student researchers in Indonesia (Gendhis Rahajeng,
Reinanda, M. Fany, Putri Rahmadhani, Natasya Hana, Astrid Budi,
Ilham Muhammad, and Uswatun Khasanah Enggar) and the Philippines
(King Philippe Biray, Regina Kyle Buco, Marie Dominique Calizo,
Alexzandra Faye Castillo, Hanzvic Clarisse Dellomas, Cathryne Enri-
quez, Joshua Evangelista, Marie Chanelle Garcia, Carla Marie Lumba,
John Joshua Macapia, Patricia Beatrice Maloles, Kim Alexander Miguel,
Katherine Navarrete, Julia Daphne Ocampo, Edward Ornopia, Mae Anne
Pagador, Jean Nicole Rodriguez, Janella Nicole Serrano, and Pamela
Mae Tagle) were instrumental in conducting the eldwork, and we
thank Arthur M. Moonga for coordinating the data collection and
analysis in Zambia. We are grateful to all our interlocutors for their
gracious participation, time, and insights. We are also grateful to all the
members of the Plastic Lives consortium and to the anonymous peer
reviewers for their comments on early drafts.
Funding sources
Carlsberg Foundation Young Researcher Fellowship (CF-20-0151).
Centre for Social Science and Global Health at the University of
Amsterdam
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