Circular economy practices in third world nations: challenges and implications for environmental sustainability

A circular economy has become the prominent business model for integrated waste management globally. The need to go circular has been a policy agenda for most governments toward environmental sustainability. The agenda to encourage smart production of goods and services has called for the utilization of closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) among manufacturing companies. The study explored circular economy practices and their implication for environmental sustainability in third world nations using Ghana as a study location. The study examined the extent to which CE has been practiced among producers of goods and services using waste disposal methods as indicators. Adopting the environmental sustainability framework coupled with explorative research design, the study assessed how the various stakeholders perceive CE as a tool for combating waste management crises in third world nations. The theory is suitable for the study because proper waste disposal whatsoever, is linked to human attitude and it takes good governance and laws to bring sanity toward waste management. Using structured questionnaires, face-to-face interviews, field surveys, and observation, data was collected, collated, analyzed, and presented with the aid of tables and charts. It was revealed that the majority of the producers of goods and services have little or no knowledge about CE and as such some of them practice CE without knowing. Pictures from some shops and waste disposal depots indicate that the management of waste, especially plastics and e-waste, is in shambles and most of these wastes end up in gutters, public drains, and open lots. The circular economy is seen as an integrated business model that puts together all key stakeholders in the business cycle including the central government. The involvement of the central government is to ensure the smooth application and enforcement of laws needed to check the activities of manufacturers. The principles of CLSC are useful in CE to create a reverse technological facility that tracks the supplied goods to ensure that used goods that are of no value to consumers are brought back to the manufacturer with the aim of recycling for the benefit of humankind and the environment. It was acknowledged that waste producers and managers do not have any clear-cut policies toward CE and there is no motivation for those eager to go circular in Ghana. The study reveals that scrap dealers have contributed immensely to closing the waste loop in the autoparts industry but not without challenges. Though plastic waste from sachet and bottled water producers was seen to have been managed poorly, e-waste management is worst, posing much threat to repairers of TV sets and fridges as most of them have had their shops flooded with these wastes. Lack of waste sorting is one of the biggest factors hindering sustainable CE practices in Ghana. Ghana has only one waste management company (the Zoomlion Company Ltd) responsible for collecting and disposing of waste and ineffective alliance from the government has made them unproductive. Based on the waste recovery model, the study recommends a specialized fiscal policy to regulate the producers of waste such that those with CE measures get a low tax bracket. Graphical abstract