The burden on nature has already increased. COVID-19 Pandemic leads to even more pollution of the world’s oceans. Used face masks pollute the environment and pose a serious health risk to wildlife, especially marine organisms. Most masks are made from durable plastic materials, and they can remain in the environment from a few decades up to hundreds of years. Even an uninfected mask is a source of microplastic, which subsequently enters the human body due to improper disposal. Weather conditions will begin to decompose it and plastic molecules will get into the environmental cycle. In this article, we will try to address the issue by showing one of the best already-existing practices, such as the French start-up Plaxtil. Moreover, we will try to understand possible solutions to increase pro-environmental behaviors based on academic papers on behavioral psychology. In conclusion, a suggestion to public authorities will be made to reinforce public actions and regulatory nudges to address the issue.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, masks were primarily used in hospitals and clinics. They were disposed of alongside several other medical wastes. One can only imagine the amount of face masks that are in use today, it is, therefore, necessary to give a look at medical mask sales data. According to the consulting firm Grand View Research, if the global market for disposable protective masks in 2019 was estimated at $800 million, this year it increased up to $166 billion considering that nowadays, a person must change the mask every 2-3 hours.
However, masks cannot be introduced in the standard plastic recycling process, since they are classified as medical waste and their hazard threat is higher. Otherwise, they inevitably harm the environment. It should be noted that even this kind of waste can be recycled and processed into raw materials for new products. Countries all over the world are currently attempting to research the best way to recycle masks. Nevertheless, from a logistical point of view, this is not easy because the virus can remain on the surface of plastic for several days.
In addition, each mask is made up of three different materials, two of which are metal and rubber. This fact also complicates the recycling process. New initiatives and firms are coming up with ideas and technologies that are able to disinfect personal protection masks and safely process them, like Plaxtil. On the field of innovation and sustainability, Plaxtil is a French start-up that created an initiative to recycle thousands of face masks.
The process is structured as follows: first, the masks are collected and stored to stop the ineffectiveness; after 4 days, they are crushed and disinfected using ultraviolet light; then, masks are mixed with a specific substance and then processed into new Plaxtil material, from which it is possible to make a variety of plastic goods, like protective plastic visors, visors holders or storage boxes. At this stage, the company is focused on producing plastic visors to protect people against COVID-19. Since the end of June, the company has processed over 50,000 masks into 3,000 new products.
However, an issue remains: people are not recycling their masks, and even worse, they are throwing them on the ground. This is a serious problem, given the amount of protective devices in our world. This is a consequence of the lack of information and infrastructure to recycle face masks, and maybe even the absence of legislation to enforce recycling.
A single-use face mask made of layers of plastic on the floor
An area where we have seen an excess of improperly disposed face masks is that of public transportation. Face masks are littered throughout these locations. Public transportation is an area of high congestion where many feel the necessity to switch their current face mask to a brand new sanitized in order to feel protected. One solution to tackle the issue is to increase the amount of specialized trash bins for masks in all public places, in the hope that this would create greater ease of access. In fact, studies have shown reinforcement of positive emotion as a major factor in people’s incentive to recycle, and we believe public authorities should necessarily foster this positive emotion through incentives. Cumulated with the spread of effective mask bins, this will raise consumer’s participation.
To strengthen the recycling process, one could tackle human behaviors through “perceptual affordances”. This concept refers to a particular objects’ designs that show users which action should be performed. Rutgers University made an experiment in which thirty bins were positioned in various buildings inside the campus, analyzed whether perceptual affordances do influence recycling behaviors. The results showed that the use of specialized container lids increased the recycling compliance rate by 34% and reduced the number of contaminants entering the recycling stream by 95%.
But delivering specialized bins can be considered too expensive by public authorities. Thus, some kind of incentive to make pro-environmental actions is needed. Another study (Schneider et al. 2017), highlights the influence of anticipated pride and guilt on pro-environmental decision-making. It compares the two emotions and their influence on reinforcing pro-environmental actions and behavioral intentions: “Notably, inducing people to anticipate feelings of pride for positive future actions appears to have a more powerful effect on pro-environmental motivation compared to prompting feelings of guilt for inactions”.
The results of this study to nudge people indicate anticipated pride in recognition for one’s actions yields greater results than attempting to use guilt tactics. Reinforcing green behavior with positive communication and messaging strategies will give the actor greater satisfaction and a higher rate of permanent behavioral change. Applying this logic to the issue of face masks, implementing positive communication strategies, will stimulate people in recycling face masks to receive their desired satisfaction and recognition. Thereby, it is necessary to display positive messages on the bins and on billboards to increase the level of concern and volunteer participation among people in constructing a greener world.
Instilling a more in-depth understanding of such effects in policymakers, advocacy organizations, etc, will benefit pro-environmental decision making. Positive reinforcement has proven to increase future positive behavior amongst those who engage in it. With the knowledge of the precedent results, implementing similar tactics presented in an innovative manner will increase desired recycling behavior among the population. For example, in Rome, the starting point can be the experimentation of integrating special bins for face masks in the public transport network and the deployment of a more pervasive environmental advertisement. In this way, we could observe if perceptual affordances and anticipated emotions have a positive effect on recycling individual protection devices. Implementation of the proposals put forth, and active community engagement is needed to confront the issue we are currently facing. It would drastically reduce it, in the hope that one day it will be eliminated.
This article has been written by the students of the Luiss new Msc in Law, Digital Innovation and Sustainability in the context of the class of Law and Policy of Innovation and Sustainability taught by Professor Christian Iaione. The cluster “Life and Human Kind” is composed of the following students: Chiara Blasetti, Anthony Galvano, Sophie Bols, Betul Puskullu, Anastasia Kuzina and Carlo Venturi.
In 2016 five European universities of applied sciences, located in Frankfurt, Ghent, Edinburgh, Oslo and Amsterdam, set up the U!REKA consortium. In 2020 partners from Lisbon and Ostrava joined Universities involved in the U!REKA Lab: Urban Commons are Frankfurt Hochschule, Metropolia (Helsinki), Hogeschool Gent, and Hogeschool van Amsterdam. Ostrava and Lisbon will join soon. More information on U!REKA: www.ureka.eu.
The universities partner in various ways to educate, shape and empower the European professionals of tomorrow. One of the key elements within this network is the joint program U!REKA Lab: Urban Commons, which kicked off its online curriculum at the beginning of this year.
In search of an actual, relevant and interdisciplinary topic that
would ‘fit’ and ‘make a difference’ in all the U!REKA partner cities, the
Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS) suggested Urban Commons as the
main theme. Amsterdam has had the privilege of hosting Christian Iaione and
Sheila Foster several times and several urban professionals, including myself,
got inspired by their work. Other cities, except for Ghent (Bauwens, 2017),
were not yet familiar with the term Urban Commons. This of course does not mean
that they do not have commoning initiatives.
The U!REKA cities are united in searching for (new) answers to
complex and persistent challenges, like poverty, mobility, housing, energy, and
so on. To deal with these challenges, they create innovation hubs, transition
grounds and democratic renewal spaces. But, how do we keep our cities and
neighborhoods livable in a situation of growing economic polarization and
social fragmentation and how do we create a transition towards a truly
democratic and sustainable society? (Majoor, et al., 2017; Raworth, 2017).
Behind these challenges is an underlying governance question: what
kinds of arrangements are needed to ‘guide’ these transitions? In most cities,
like the U!reka ones, there is a growing interest in (and practice of) new
forms of governance that aim to work from the principle of common ownership. A
shared community garden, a local car-sharing program, a program of local
neighborhood assistance, a local currency, etc. How are they organized? What
kind of values will be added to the community and place, when a more
collaborative governance is introduced? How does this kind of cooperation
support the societal and ecological transitions and foster the Sustainable
Development Goals?
Common goal
In the U!REKA Lab: Urban Commons, we want to find out how Urban Commons
manifest themselves in the different cities. We will not only identify, study
and critically assess these initiatives in the context of changing economic,
social and political settings, we also aim to create co-learning between these
practices to optimize their performance. An important perspective is for
example how these initiatives are connected to, or interfere with, existing
local and national government and market regulations.
For the U!REKA universities, this forwarding international
cooperation and the exploration of new e-learning methods help to contribute to
the important political, cultural and economic role of the practice-oriented
universities in the respective cities and countries.
What happens in the lab?
Since the concept of the common applies to many sectors and issues,
the U!REKA Lab has decided to integrate it into already existing courses from
participating lecturers, ranging from social work to art, urban governance,
urban planning and housing, on both Bachelor and Master level. In this way,
students not only learn more about Urban Commons, but they also experience how
it appears in other fields and disciplines and develop new interdisciplinary
perspectives.
The lab is set up in two interlinked streams: education and
research. The education aspect consists of interdisciplinary blended learning
through screencasts from each university of applied sciences and online forums.
Each screencast consists of a few fixed components, including basic commons
theory, an introduction of the city, university and course, local policy on
citizens’ initiatives, and a showcase of a local initiative.)
The research aspect focuses on joint assignments and projects by
students and researchers to study and compare local initiatives in the
participating cities. Since the U!REKA Lab is a university-based initiative we
want to focus on the role of knowledge institutions in the development of Urban
Commons and our future cities. As universities, we can not only do research on
urban commons and co-creation, we can also play a role in initiating,
facilitating and monitoring these practices. Also, we can train our students,
the future (urban) professionals, on co-ownership, sharing and collaborative
governance and educate experts in this new sustainable and truly democratic
form of collaborative governance.
The results of this year U!REKA were presented during the digital
U!RCommons Day, which was attended by 70 students from our universities. Part
of the program was a presentation of student’s field research. These videos
were also shown in the Forum of the Deutsche Werkbund in Frankfurt (summer
2020) and in November will be part of a virtual exhibition during the U!REKA
Annual Meeting.
The U!REKA Lab: Urban Commons will continue its approach of
co-learning, co-teaching and co-researching
and expand with more transnational partners and online exchanges between
students, lecturers and researchers on different aspects of the Urban Commons.
Looking forward, the project team is participating in the Erasmus+ virtual
exchange advanced training course to gain the skills needed to further develop
the program and preparing a U!REKA Summer School on Urban Commons in 2021 in
Frankfurt.
Literature
list
Bauwens, Michel, A Commons Transition Plan for the city of Ghent,
2017. https://commonstransition.org/commons-transition-plan-city-ghent/
Foster,
Sheila, Iaione, Christian (2016) ‘The city as a commons’ in: Yale Law &
Policy Review vol. 34 (2).
SansJus
stands for “Sensing for Justice”. The project was born after a landmark court
decision released in Texas, on June 27th 2019, in which a judge found the
petrochemical company Formosa Plastics Corporation, liable for violating the
Clean Water Act because of plastic discharge into local waters. The case was
brought by a civic group based in part on citizen sensed-evidence which
involved volunteer observations performed over years. This practice entailing
grassroots-driven environmental monitoring could be qualified as ‘Citizen
Science’ and, more specifically, ‘Citizen Sensing’. The contamination could not
be proved through existing data held by competent authorities since the company
never filed any record of pollution with the competent authority. Rather, the
monitoring and data collection was almost entirely conducted by local
residents.
The key
objective of the Sensing for Justice project is to fill the knowledge gap to
avoid a possible scientific and legislative vacuum and provide newly required
research capacity in the EU. The research will be hosted by the European
Commission Joint Research Centre, currently the leading actor in the research
on Citizen Science for environmental monitoring and reporting, which will allow
us to play a crucial role in the enactment of measures to release Citizen
Science for litigation and mediation’s potential across the EU.
Nowadays
it is essential to redefine Citizen Sensing as a manifestation of the broader
Citizen Science practice having a potential source of evidence acceptable in
environmental litigation, as an exercise of the right to contribute to
environmental information and even as a method to foster environmental
mediation.
Give a
look to SensJus website to discover the news and upcoming actions of the
project!
The City
Science Initiative aims to strengthen how science and research can help address
the urban challenges and to develop a structured approach to evidence-informed
policy-making at cities’ level.
Recently,
the report reflecting on the CSI pilot phase has been finalized and published,
by the name of ‘City Science for Urban Challenges’. The report of the mission
board for climate-neutral and smart cities is accessible through this link.
“The
introduction of a Climate City Mission is a radical new way of achieving
climate neutrality – and of doing so faster, by 2030. The Mission aims to
promote system innovation across the value chain of city investment, targeting
multiple sectors such as governance, transport, energy, construction and
recycling, with support from powerful digital technologies. As such, it
requires a change in regulations, approaches and instruments combined with the
willingness to go beyond existing schemes and habits. The Mission also demands
a change of attitude towards practical aspects of implementation, but also as
concerns people and organisations working together: citizens, local
governments, central and regional governments, and European institutions. We
expect citizens, city administrations and political leaders to show commitment,
imagination and determination. We expect you to implement this Mission with the
same determination as the Americans did with their Moonshot. The climate minded
transformation of cities goes far beyond the idea of the Man on the Moon. This
is The Mission of our times!” (Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, Chair of the Mission
Board for Climate Neutral and Smart Cities)
Food
policy has not usually represented a mainstream domain for urban planning.
However, as Professor Kevin Morgan argued now ten years ago, this “puzzling
omission” is not justifiable anymore given the multifunctional character of the
food system with his effects on different policy sectors and the now recognized
belief that it cannot be automatically relegated to the rural policy domain
(2010: 341). Accordingly, Thomas Forster et Al. collected best practices from
cities around the world to demonstrate the breadth of food policy and programmatic
work that is occurring in urban areas, proposing a wide range of solutions for
Mayors (2015). Their collection of policy solutions showed how “cities are
moving towards an integrated approach to food systems and there are wide
interest and experimentation in inter-departmental institutional mechanisms”
(Forster et Al. 2015:17)
London Mayor Sadiq Khan buying food in a London Market (source Sustain)
In
this context, the city of London shows a complex governance system (Travers
2002: 787) which at a first sight does not seem to leave much space to food
policy. Thus, London has a two-tier structure with 32 boroughs plus the City of
London representing local interests and the Greater London Authority (GLA),
consisting of the Mayor and the Assembly, in charge of the London region
(Travers 2018: 340). The London boroughs are responsible for local services
delivery. In terms of policy competences, they run social care, environmental
policies, road management, public health, social housing, waste management and
they can supervise local schools (Travers 2018: 348). Whilst the Mayor
establishes the strategic framework for the boroughs and the London plan, he
also holds executive powers over transport – chairing the executive board of
Transport for London – policing, fire, emergency services, London’s growth and
economy. He even has a shared competence in housing and regeneration policy
(Burdett and Rode 2015). By contrast, food policy in the UK appears fragmented
amongst different policy sectors and layers. In particular, the multilevel
nature of the food sector led food to be considered a “wicked issue” for
policymaking and apparently unable to fit the policy system (Parsons, Barling
and Lang 2018: 212). Consequently, an evident policy opportunity emerged for
urban food policy, with the city of London experimenting new policy structures
and promoting policy change.
In
the last years, the city of London has strengthened its commitment to food
policy. The increased powers of the Mayor and the GLA enabled them to find new
policy opportunities and address relevant issues for the capital, even in
absence of strategic responsibilities. And food is one of these cases. Indeed,
the Mayor and the GLA “consult widely and work closely with London
organizations – boroughs, the private sector and voluntary bodies, in a new
inclusive style of politics” (Pilgrim 2006: 226). Moreover, the Mayor has to
enhance residents’ health and wellbeing, by also promoting social and economic
development (Halliday and Barling 2018: 186). Hence, food policymaking can be
enlisted within this duty. However, the creativity of Mayors in using their
powers (Blick and Dunleavy 2017: 4) explicitly manifested concerning food. In
fact, the current Mayor Sadiq Khan promoted a very interventionist policy
campaign banning junk food advertisements from Transport for London, relying on
its strategic direction over transport policy (Hawkes and Parsons 2019: 5).
This policy action was firstly developed on-the-ground knowledge released by
London boroughs (Hawkes and Parsons 2019: 5) and it showed how the complexity
of London governance provides several policy opportunities encouraging the
emergence of a complex urban food governance system. Additionally, the current
London Plan provides support for food growing, local food production,
encourages food waste management, aims to improve Londoners’ access to quality
and healthy food (GLA 2016). Moreover, the plan intends to tackle food poverty
by increasing the provision of land for food growing in London (GLA 2016: 323).
Finally, it calls for the implementation of a new London Food Strategy (GLA
2016: 323). This strategy exemplifies the pan London commitment to food
policymaking. The most recent – promoted by Mayor Sadiq Khan – was finally
approved in 2018 (Hawkes and Parsons 2019: 4). It openly aims to guarantee that
“all Londoners have access to healthy and sustainable food” (GLA 2018: 9) and
“highlights how food is connected to everything we do as a society: it affects
the environment, it drives our economy, affects our health and it is a central
part of our cultural life” (GLA 2018: 7). Among its policy objectives, it
differs from past food strategies in its promises to “tackle food poverty,
child obesity and unhealthy food environments” (Hawkes and Parsons 2019: 4).
The
implementation of the London Food Strategy has been supported by the London
Food Programme, which is part of the GLA Regeneration and Economic Development
Policy Unit. The Food Programme team also cooperates with food partners in the
private, public and third sectors to deliver and monitor a wide range of
projects which may concern public health, social welfare and environmental
policy issues. It also works closely with the London Food Board. The board
counsels the Mayor on food priorities for London and it is composed of experts
from academia, the third and the private sector. Finally, London boroughs’
voice is heard through the Borough Food Sub-Group of the London Food Board
(BFSG), which is primarily composed of officials from London boroughs’ public
health teams (Hawkes and Parsons 2019: 5). It aims to strengthen the
relationship between the GLA and London boroughs as regards food policymaking
and reduce policy fragmentation. Since the Mayor has limited powers on
food-related issues and boroughs have no obligation to follow his
recommendations, the subgroup offers a more democratic arena for discussion
(Halliday and Barling 2018). Moreover, the London Food Programme works in
partnership with Sustain, an alliance of food and farming organizations, which
supports London boroughs developing Food Poverty Action Plans (GLA n.d.). Sustain
also releases every year the report “Beyond the Food Bank” to assess boroughs’
signs of progress in meeting food objectives over the year. The report shares
every year what each London borough is doing on food to generate positive competition
among each other.
In
this context, London Boroughs – like other local authorities in the UK – have a
wide range of policy levers to produce long-term food policy change, and
address social, economic and environmental issues as well (Marceau 2018: 3). Food
Poverty Action Plans represent one of these levers through which local
authorities can work with local partners to tackle food poverty at the local
level (Marceau 2018: 3). Here, the limited Mayoral powers and resources as
regards food policymaking explain how several food policy networks and
partnerships emerged, especially in London, to fill the gaps that neither city
nor local politics managed to compensate. Thus, a food partnership represents a
consortium of organizations, ideally from the public, voluntary, faith and
community sectors, who locally commit to working together and tackling food
poverty (Sustain 2020). In 2017 around 50 cross-sector food partnerships have
been set up in the UK as part of the Sustainable Food Cities movement (Davies
2017: 3). Once established, they are generally constituted by cross-sector
bodies. Davies reports that food partnerships may take different shapes,
relying on a more formalized or more informal structure. Some are directly
housed by public sector organizations and are generally staffed by government’s
employees. Others may be staffed and funded by third sector organizations or
even fully independent, with minimal available resources and mostly composed by
volunteers (Davies 2017: 3).
Ultimately,
the complexity of London’s urban governance represented a fertile environment
for food policymaking, especially considering the policy vacuum left by the UK
central Government as regards food. Thus, food policies have been recently
added to London’s local and city-region agendas. Firstly, the Mayor made food a
relevant component of its London Plan and launched the third London Food
Strategy. Then, London boroughs started implementing local food policies as
food poverty action plans and cooperating with local food partnerships.
Evidently, if urban planning neglected food policy for a long time, the case of
London shows how an increasing number of local actors from the public, private
and third sector have finally recognized the strategic significance of the food
system for urban areas and, more in general, of food for communities’ health
and wellbeing
References
Blick,
A. and Dunleavy, P. (2017), Audit 2017: How democratic is the devolved
government of London? London: Democratic Audit UK.
Forster,
T. et Al. (2015), Milan Urban Food Policy Pact: Selected Good Practices from
Cities, Utopie/29 Globalizzazione, Milan: Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation.
Halliday,
J. and Barling D. (2018), The Role and Engagement of Mayors in Local Food
Policy, In Rethinking Food Policy: A Fresh Approach to Policy and Practice.
London: Centre for Food Policy.
Morgan,
K. (2010), Feeding the City: The Challenges of Urban Food Planning,
International Planning Studies, 14: 4, pp. 341-348.
Parsons,
K. and Hawkes, C. (2019), Brief 4: Embedding Food in All Policies, In
Rethinking Food Policy: A Fresh Approach to Policy and Practice, London: Centre
for Food Policy, pp: 1-8.
Parsons,
K., Barling, D. and Lang, T. (2018), UK Policymaking Institutions and their
implications for integrated Food Policy (Chapter 7), Advances in Food Security
and Sustainability, Volume 3, pp. 211-251.
Pilgrim,
M. (2006), London Regional Governance and the London Boroughs, Local Government
Studies, 32:3, pp.223-238.
Travers,
T. (2002), Decentralization London-style: The GLA and London Governance,
Regional Studies, 36:7, pp. 779-788.
Travers,
T. (2018), London: government and politics in the boroughs, in Dunleavy, P et
al (Eds.), The UK’s Changing Democracy: The 2018 Democratic Audit. London: LSE
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