Sustainability Implications Of Post-Consumer Recycled Polypropylene In Plastic Packaging: A Stakeholder Perception Study In Bangladesh

Abstract

This thesis examines how industry stakeholders in Bangladesh perceive the sustainability implications of post-consumer recycled polypropylene (RPP) in the plastic-packaging sector; the data analysed are stakeholder judgements collected through a structured questionnaire and are not life-cycle inventory measurements of environmental performance. Conceptually, the work draws on Life Cycle Thinking (LCT), the impact-category vocabulary of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), and Circular Economy Theory (CET). Methodologically, it uses a quantitative, cross-sectional, perception-based survey of 142 manufacturing, recycling and dual-activity firms in the industrial corridors of Dhaka, Narayanganj, Gazipur and Chattogram, with data collected between January and March 2026. Respondents reported a clearly positive perception of environmental benefits from RPP substitution (composite mean = 3.81, SD = 0.93), more moderate perceptions of economic benefits (mean = 3.18, SD = 0.98), and lower perceptions of usability and product performance (mean = 2.91, SD = 0.94). The single-item overall sustainability-benefit measure was positive (mean = 3.60, SD = 0.80). Kruskal-Wallis tests revealed statistically significant differences between organisation types on the environmental, economic, usability and overall indices, while Spearman correlations confirmed the theoretically expected ordering of associations between RPP usage, life-cycle indicators and perceived outcomes. The seven multi-item scales returned Cronbach’s alpha values between 0.672 and 0.917, and one single-item overall-perception measure supplemented these multi-item scales. The study contributes context-specific, stakeholder-informed evidence to a literature dominated by technical LCA studies conducted in higher-income economies. Its findings are not a substitute for measured environmental performance data; rather, they identify the perceived adoption conditions, barriers and decision factors that shape RPP uptake in Bangladesh’s plastic-packaging value chain — most notably the asymmetry between strong perceived environmental benefit and weaker perceived usability, the manufacturer-recycler perception gap, and the limited integration of energy and transport considerations into stakeholder reasoning. The study also delivers a research-grade questionnaire instrument that can be adapted and re-tested in adjacent emerging-economy settings. Keywords: post-consumer recycled polypropylene; RPP; plastic packaging; Bangladesh; stakeholder perception; Life Cycle Thinking; Circular Economy; sustainability.