Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a sudden expansion of the e-commerce industry. This expansion incurred an increase in the use of packaging for e-commerce products, specifically plastic packaging. As the pandemic disrupted the global economy, global future sustainability needs to be reassessed. Assessing the sustainability of developing countries is imperative as developing countries influence global material flow. Notably, the Philippines is reported as a major contributor of plastic waste emitted to the ocean. Estimating the country’s plastic waste emission due to the e-commerce market growth is essential for foresight on the country’s sustainability. Therefore, this research aims to estimate and forecast the e-commerce plastic packaging waste in the Philippines. The research focuses on the fate of plastic packaging through the Plastic Leak Project (PLP) model. This study integrates literature data on e-commerce market size and trend, plastic packaging weight, and leakage ratios to the PLP model. The integrated model provided estimates of the plastic waste incurred by the e-commerce industry. Results showed that the Philippines emitted 11.79 kt of e-commerce plastic packaging. Compared with existing literature, the emission comprises 2.66 % of all plastic waste emitted. The results also showed that 0.42 kt of e-commerce plastic packaging was emitted to the ocean, comprising 0.12 % of the country’s total plastic emitted to the ocean. The percent contribution indicates that e-commerce plastic waste is unnoticeable. However, sustainability action plans are still needed in managing the growing e-commerce plastic packaging waste emission. Future research works may utilize the model as a sub-model of crave-to-grave life cycle models. The developed model may also be utilized in estimating and forecasting e-commerce plastic packaging waste in other countries.
