According to the analysis, current initiatives primarily focus on the end of the plastics life cycle, that is, they facilitate waste collection, recycling, and recovery. The second area of focus is the beginning of the plastic life cycle, specifically refusing and reducing the use of single-use plastics. In contrast, very few initiatives, such as reuse, repair, and repurposing, aim to extend product lifetime. This preliminary observation highlights the need for initiatives to fill this gap and focus on higher priority circular economy initiatives, such as refuse, rethink, reduce, reuse, repair, refurbishment, and remanufacture.

In terms of the approaches taken by stakeholders, community-based initiatives primarily focus on education and raising awareness, as well as providing incentives for recycling, whereas industry and public initiatives focus on substituting plastics for other materials, as well as facilitating waste collection and recycling, particularly through collaboration with the informal sector. The main knowledge gaps identified was the lack of information on the factors that explain the success or failure of an initiative, particularly with regard to its ability to sustain itself in the long term and to scale up. There appears to be a dearth of initiatives focusing on extending product lifetime, with little information on why that is the case. Finally, there is a lack of understanding of the contextual factors (notably, policies and government interventions) that can enable or hinder the emergence of those initiatives. Based on these gaps identified, the following five research questions were formulated:

• What are the drivers (regulatory, policy-related, economic, social, technical, etc.) for plastics and circular economy-related initiatives in India?
• What are the social, economic, and environmental outcomes/impacts of implemented initiatives?
• What are the factors that explain the longevity of an initiative (its ability to sustain itself), or on the contrary, its failure to do so?
• What are the factors that explain the ability of an initiative to replicate or scale up?
• Why is there a lack of initiatives targeting lifetime extension, such as reuse, repair, and repurposing of plastics products?

To answer our research questions, we identified nine potential case studies based on a range of criteria, including initiatives driven by different proponents in diverse geographies using a range of circular economy strategies and approaches and initiatives that have seen varying levels of success and failure at different scales. In addition, the evaluation of case studies will provide insights into how initiatives can be better supported for which we have developed an evaluation framework for analysing the effectiveness of each initiative. The framework consisted of five main dimensions – (i) context; (ii) appropriateness; (iii) governance and management; (iv) innovativeness and diffusion; and (v) outcomes and impacts. Based on that, the team has developed a stakeholder engagement plan and has undertaken interviews with the proponents of a number of community- and industry-led initiatives. Eight community-led initiatives reviewed are as follows:

• Akshar Foundation, Assam, in 2016, provided quality education to people by collecting plastic waste in the form of fees and made eco-bricks out of it.
• In 2011, a lake cleaning campaign was started by Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) to get clown fish from the bottom of the lakes, which got dumped by the plastic pollution, leading to the loss of fisherfolk communities’ livelihoods (consisting of about 10,000 families). To save their livelihood practices, ATREE started the "Lake Protection Forum" followed by "Federation of Vembanad", and this initiative is continued in the area till now.
• Piloted in 2017, the Alag Karo initiative came up with an objective of segregating the waste – dry, wet, and hazardous waste – and building capacities of the waste collectors.
• The Samarpan Foundation started with the construction of a school in Delhi with mud-filled PET bottles, where PET bottles are collected, sorted, and filled with mud.
• NETFISH-MPEDA, Kerala has provided eco-friendly bags to fishing vessels to collect plastic waste that comes across the sea while fishing and has set up a shredding machine and a bailing machine for separating plastic bottles from other kinds of plastic waste. The shredded granules are used by the Harbour Engineering Department (HED) for road construction works.
• Bring Your Own Bag (BYOB) is an initiative undertaken by 'iamgurgaon', which promotes the use of reusable bags by addressing the harmful effects of single-use plastic (including polypropylene bags) on the environment.
• In 2019, Arannya launched an educational campaign to aware small business operators in Goa about the need to say ‘no’ to single-use plastics. One of their team members has tried to implement the campaign in Pune but was not successful because it was difficult to convince small vendors as they do not have access to viable and cheap alternative materials.
• "Hasiru Dala", which means Green Force, is a social impact organisation that works with waste pickers and other waste workers to ensure a life with dignity.

Three industry-led initiatives reviewed are as follows:

• In 2019, PepsiCo organised, in partnership with the not-for-profit Project Mumbai, a beach cleaning drive for collecting trash at nine beaches and recycled it into new products, including T-shirts, bins, and chairs.
• ITC launched their "Well-being Out of Waste" programme for training waste pickers and providing them with a financial incentive to sell low-value plastics (LVP) and multi-layered laminates (MLL) waste at a dry waste collection centre. The LVP/MLL waste collected is then sent to a cement kiln for energy recovery.
• Indian Hotels Company (known by the Taj brand) launched the ‘Paathya’ initiative in 2019 to offer refilled glass bottles instead of mineral water bottles to their guest. Under this "Paathya" initiative, they plan to shift towards glass bottles (one of which can be seen on the table in Image 1) in all their hotel operations across the country by 2030.

Image 1: The DA team interacting with a Taj Hotel official to learn more about the 'Paathya' initiative