Narrating plastics governance: policy narratives in the European plastics strategy

The European Union (EU) aspires to be an important global agenda-setter on how treat and regulate the growing plastics problem. We present analysis of plastic policy narratives shaping governance, in particular through Commission’s Plastics Strategy. Our aim is first uncover at play, then examine actors make use those strategic construction. Based interviews with key stakeholders document analysis, we identify four narratives: fossil feedstock dependency, resource inefficiency, pollution, toxicity. find that inefficiency pollution figure most prominently circular economy being advanced as a solution cuts across different narratives. However, surface agreement need for ‘circularity’ hides deeper-lying ideological divisions over what exactly means directions this implies governance.