Sustainable Livelihoods Through Reduced Plastic Waste: Collaborative Community-based Sustainability-oriented Innovation

Abstract

This chapter describes a project that aims to support community livelihoods and to reduce plastic use and food waste, through engaging with entrepreneurial communities of practice in biomaterials innovation. Vietnam, the site of the study, has problems with plastic pollution, with food waste, and with supporting sustainable community livelihoods. To address these problems, the research team is engaged in a process of collaborative discovery with local craft village communities and social enterprises. Working with local entrepreneur-makers and their communities, the project investigates how biomaterials might be produced from waste food (e.g., tea, fruit), and transformed into commercializable products for consumer markets. The technology platform is bacterial cellulose, which can be grown using local waste food, using minimal water and energy resources. We have researched and developed this platform through an initial research project (Materialfutures.org). Five illustrative cases demonstrate how biomaterials can be produced and commercialized, drawing on community resources. Fieldwork in two villages provided insights into traditional material production techniques. The work of four social enterprises provides insights into how project outputs might be commercialized. Drawing on this preliminary work, the chapter outlines the plan for current research engaging selected craft village communities in a participatory action research project. Throughout, processes of collective, co-produced learning and experimentation provide a foil to conventional extractive approaches to knowledge production. Project outcomes are both practical and theoretical. Sustainable livelihoods are supported through community skill and relationship building, and at the same time, the knowledge produced contributes to both ecopreneurship and sustainability-oriented innovation literature.