Global North Policy Paradigms Delegitimizes Circular Practices of the Global South: Case of End of Life Vehicles
Studying waste management and circular economy policies in India reveal the engagement of international actors in the policy process. This is facilitated through joint declaration between governments, memorandum of understandings and consortiums between international multilateral development agencies and local agencies. Technical assistance is provided through funded research, policy reports, manuals and tools. They advocate for a shift from public waste management paradigm to private sector driven circular economy.
Based on extensive field based research since last three years on the End of Life Vehicle management process in Mumbai this paper explores the policy process adopted for the Vehicle Scrappage Policy. I critic the pre and post policy processes that create new institutional models jeopardizing existing informal sector practices. The complex regulatory requirements, administrative protocols, fiscal instruments and monitoring tools, create barriers for the informal sector. The exploratory approach identifies the policy bias supporting material recovery and recycling rather than practices of repair, reuse, remanufacturing, refurbishment that contribute towards higher circularity goals.
The paper postulates that Global North policy paradigms are increasingly influencing the policy processes in the Global South. It ignores the existing contextual and complex dynamics, and socio-political relationships of actors with the waste valorization process. Doing so, is threatening to delegitimize ingenious circular networks and practices. The paper proposes that the existing circular networks and practices are valid institutions that are codified in space, have a collective manifestation of communication power, that resolve environmental problems by providing an integrated, stable, cooperative model through spontaneous patterns of self-coordination, that economizes transaction costs, thus contributing to not only a circular economy but building a ‘circular society.’