Environmental Impacts of disposable PET plastic bottles: The case Water Bottling Companies in Addis Ababa
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2020-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
A.A.U
Abstract
The future of humankind on this planet depends on the sustainability of a complex system involving three interdependent, highly fragile subsystems – the natural environment, the social/political system and the global economy (Sadler, 2003). In most developed and developing countries with increasing population, prosperity and urbanization, one of the major challenges for municipalities is to collect, recycle, treat and dispose of increasing quantities of solid waste and wastewater (Coelho, 2011). Hence, the objective of this research proposal entitled as “Environmental impacts of disposable PET plastic bottles: The case of Water bottling companies in Addis Ababa” is to identify the estimated quantity of disposable plastic bottles, their respective treatment methods and estimate value for the environmental impacts of these wastes for Addis Ababa. The valuated impacts are evaluated using benefit transfer methods from other countries study. The study employed a cross-sectional in depth interview in which identical self-administered guiding questionnaires were used for six higher officials and experts in the focus area of the study. The study uses case type, mixed method and purposive sampling for this particular exploratory type research. The quantitative findings shows that the net valuated environmental impact of recycling benefit for the year 2018 was 23.98 USD per ton whereas incineration and land fill costs 14.36 and 19.93 USD per ton respectively. The total disposable pet bottles for the city show that net environmental benefit of 224,673.74 USD or 7,303,719.43 birr was gained for the cumulative impacts of 69.4% recycled and 30.6% landfilled waste treatment practice of the city respectively. Whereas, the qualitative findings of the study show that the solid waste proclamation lacks proper enactment and strict implementation of recycling laws that specifically target PET bottles. In addition, the country’s recycling process of disposable bottles for export market is limited to PET flake as a product. So, the study proposes respective solutions for the above stated gaps. And finally, the research concludes its recommendation by giving directions to do further researches on disposable plastic bottles of the country as a whole.
Description
A Research paper submitted to the department of management in the partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Executive Masters of Business Administration
Keywords
Bottling company, Environmental impact, PET bot