Plastic Podcast Episode 24: Plastic and Tourism - How to Travel Better and Transform the Industry

Exploring the intersection of tourism and plastic pollution, this episode dives into how vacations contribute to environmental challenges. Host Clark Marchese talks with Dr. Farzana Quoquab, an expert in green marketing and sustainable development, about the link between tourism and increased plastic waste. They discuss the structural issues within the tourism industry, the role of governments, businesses, and individuals in reducing plastic pollution, and highlight success stories from countries like Malaysia and the Maldives. Tune in to learn how to be a more responsible tourist and what actions can be taken to protect our planet’s most beautiful destinations.

Episode Guests:  Dr. Farzana Quoquab 

Find more information about Dr. Quoquab here. 

Find a link to Dr. Quoquab’s article here.

Find more of Dr. Quoquab’s research on Google Scholar and Research Gate

Find the article about Cape Town, beach pollution, and the impact on the local economy here. 

More information about the episode and the Plastic Podcast

Episode Transcript and more information on the Pine Forest Media Website.

Follow Pine Forest Media on Instagram @pineforestmedia

Hosted, produced, and edited by Clark Marchese 

Cover art and PFM logo by Laurel Wong. 

Theme music by Tadeo Cabellos 

Transcript:

[00:00:10.280] - Clark

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Plastic podcast, the show that tells the science and the story of our relationship with Plastic. I am your host, Clark Marchese, and today we are talking about beach vacations, green tourism, Malaysia, and how you can be a more sustainable tourist. Tourist. Okay, I will start this episode by saying that I went on a small summer holiday a couple weeks ago, and before I went, I was deep into making this podcast and learning all about plastic. So naturally I started to think about what my footprint would be as a tourist and also just tourism and plastic more generally. So I wanted to find out what I could do to be a better tourist. And I did some googling and that's how I found our guest for today. But what I also found was that plastic and tourism are actually very interlinked issues and data tells us that we consume more plastic when we're traveling than we do when we are at home. And I can say from my own personal experience, because I have returned from my trip. Now that I'm recording this podcast and even trying to keep in mind everything I learned from the following conversation, I still noticed I was consuming a lot more plastic than I normally do.

[00:01:24.160] - Clark

And this sort of reinforces one of the themes that came through in the interview, which is while tourists best efforts to reduce their consumption is important, it's also important to address the tourism sector as a whole more structurally to make it more sustainable. And we're going to learn some of the ways how we can do that. Our guest, Dr. Farzana Quoquab, is a professor at the Asman Hashim International Business School in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Dr. Quoquab has a range of research interests, including consumer behavior, green marketing, sustainable development and tourism. She's been working on a series of research projects that try to understand the intersection and impact of plastic and tourism. We talked about why these are related topics, the burdens that come with plastic from the tourism sector, who is facing them. We also talked about each of the major actors in this space, including us, and what they can do to reduce the plastic impacts of the industry. Without further ado, let's get started. All right, looks like we're recording. Well, first of all, welcome to the show. Maybe the first question I have for you is if you could just tell us a bit about yourself and about your research.

[00:02:42.840] - Dr. Farzana Quoquab

Thanks for having me here. I'm pretty glad that you are working on this because something I think it should be talked about. So I am Farzana. I am an associate professor at Asman Hashim International Business School, University Technology Malaysia my research interests actually basically green and sustainable marketing, green tourism and also social.

[00:03:06.120] - Clark

Marketing okay it's great to have you here. So green tourism I guess could probably involve a lot of things can you tell us how or when plastic started to be something that you looked at specifically in that umbrella?

[00:03:19.060] - Dr. Farzana Quoquab

So what happened is that I have been working on green marketing related issues since 2016 and then 2017 the Selangor state government here banned the use of single use plastic in all supermarkets. So of course at the beginning it was very, you know, inconvenient, uncomfortable to start with this practice I was quite curious to know why it is so since then I actually started to work on plastic and then in 2023 I was editing one book it was about plastic actually the socially responsible plastic is it possible? So then I and my then students was just wanted to work on some, you know, bibliometric analysis to see what are the present research status on this particular topic so that's how I started. I have already one edited book on plastic I have four book chapters and two papers, research papers about plastic and.

[00:04:20.100] - Clark

Tourism ok and we're going to dive into some of that research later but before we jump into it I'm wondering to sort of set the stage can you explain to people why tourism and plastic pollution are issues that go so hand in hand?

[00:04:34.460] - Dr. Farzana Quoquab

Well, there are a few things first of all we are all aware about sustainable development goals at the moment two of them are very much related to this plastic pollution and the tourism. So one is SDG eleven this is talking about sustainable cities and communities and the SDG 14 is about life below water and then when I was reading articles I realized that not me, it's researchers they are saying that tourism actually one of the major plastic polluters it is coming by the facts and figures from the research actually. So of course there are many other industries they also contribute to the plastic pollution like Britain industry, packaging industry, fashion industry even we have also food and beverage industry and somehow those all industries are interconnected with tourism directly or indirectly so that's how actually tourism is one of the major plastic polluters all right.

[00:05:35.690] - Clark

So does this just basically boil down to the fact that we generate more plastic waste when I we're traveling than when we're at home?

[0:05:42.610] - Dr. Farzana Quoquab

It's very interesting question. I don't have any figure but in general what I can say that it is not exactly the case that when you are outside then we are using more plastic it is actually related to what kind of activities are engaged with so outside if we are let's say eating outside or we're shopping outside. Of course, those kind of activities somehow related to plastic pollution. It is about what kind of activities we're involved with. But having said that, tourism actually very important. I mean, players, because when you go for leisure, when you go for traveling, then actually we do not think much. We just want to enjoy that time. So we think possibly, you know, the less about the environment on that time.

[00:06:30.020] - Clark

That makes sense. And then you also mentioned that plastic pollution is related to tourism through to specific sustainable development goals. But I'm wondering if we can go a bit deeper to discuss some of the specific harms to, I guess we would call a host country that are associated with plastic tourism.

[00:06:48.140] - Dr. Farzana Quoquab

Actually, there are a lot of negative impact. First of all, it accumulates a lot of waste. So waste generation, this is itself a burden on any kind of country or the region. And secondly, when we do not have that kind of proper mechanism to handle those kind of extra accumulated waste, landfill and then the water pollution, those are the things significantly affected by the plastic pollution.

[00:07:19.400] - Clark

Yeah, I think we may underestimate just how many tourists there are that pass through a country in a year. Let's take Malaysia, where our guest is from. The population of the country as of 2022 was just under 34 million. And in 2023, according to Statista, the country welcomed 20 million tourists. So that's over half of the nation's population coming in for, let's say, a week or so, making all this garbage and then leaving again. Just next door is Thailand, which is a major destination as well. Its tourism numbers took a major dip during the pandemic, obviously, but they are starting to kick back up. And in any case, before COVID in 2019, the country received just under 40 million tourists. So that can be a major extra burden on a country's infrastructure.

[00:08:05.190] - Dr. Farzana Quoquab

This is one aspect. Second aspect is that economic side, when we want to handle or manage the waste. So that is actually extra burden to the economy. So you have to spend a lot of money, and sometimes even we want to spend money, but we don't have that kind of technology.

[00:08:22.620] - Clark

Right. Not only do you have all this extra added waste to deal with, you also have to pay to manage it.

[00:08:28.220] - Dr. Farzana Quoquab

Again, Risa is saying that certain areas, when there are a lot of plastic pollution, so environment get polluted. So some tourists are very health conscious. They are not going to visit those kind of places. So many countries, they are losing particular group of tourists. And that is also affecting the economy somehow. So there are actually multifaceted problems associated big economic aspect, societal aspect, environmental aspect, and of course, tourism sector. They're also suffering when there are a lot of pollution.

[00:09:03.640] - Clark

I did some looking into this as well, and I found in a news article put out by the Sustainable Seas Trust, which is a scientific body in South Africa. There was a recent study in Cape Town, which is also a destination that relies heavily on beach tourism, that found that plastic litter on a beach can, I'm going to quote now, is associated with a 97% loss of economic value derived from beaches and litter in densities. More than ten large items per meter, such as bottles, shopping bags, food containers, can deter 40% of foreign tourists and 60% of domestic tourists from returning to Cape Town. So the city itself suffers. This loss is equated to billions of of rand, which is the local currency each year to the local economy. I'll link the article that explains this in the show notes. I will remind some listeners of a recent episode we had with Rachel Karasik about putting plastic into context. We did a lifecycle assessment of plastic economies and health impacts, all the way from extraction of fossil fuels to the annual income of local fishermen around the world. And this also applies to people working in the tourism industry in these coastal environments, they're all the way at the end of the plastic life cycle, but the economic impacts are still there

[00:10:16.630] - Clark

And I suppose that cities or regions or areas with higher traffic of tourism will be more impacted than places that don't receive a lot of tourists. But among the places that do, I'm wondering, do we see any regions that are impacted more heavily than others?

[00:10:33.260] - Dr. Farzana Quoquab

Yes, certainly based on the research. Again, the most vulnerable places, basically coastal and marine tourism. So those are, the places are mostly polluted by the plastic.

[00:10:44.800] - Clark

That makes sense not only because of all the ways we know that plastic affects the ocean, but also if the ocean is a destination's main attraction, as it were, if it becomes polluted, then that will deter people from coming. So then I guess the question becomes, because some places are economically reliant on tourism, how do we move forward in a way that reduces tourism's contribution to plastic pollution?

[00:11:08.380] - Dr. Farzana Quoquab

It is such a multifaceted problem, and therefore the responsibility actually not only for one particular party per se, it should be all stakeholders take part in it. So who are the stakeholders? Many. First, tourists. Second, government and the policymakers. And then also we have responsibility from the researchers who are working on this kind of issues. So actually all three need to work together, side by side. Let's say if I'm a tourist and I'm thinking that what I'm using what I'm buying, what I'm consuming and also how I'm doing it. So when I am responsible, then actually a lot of bardains actually already removed from the shoulder of the government and the policymakers, my choice will tell that I am a responsible consumer and my actions will prove that. And if not one person, if many people are doing it together, then actually it is creating a better world. We also need to have proper policy enforced by the government and the policymakers simultaneously. When you're talking about the tourism players, they also need profit, no business actions actually without profit making. So they need support from government. So for example, I am a tourist tourism player and I am trying to have, for example, institute of plastic some alternatives.

[00:12:34.260] - Dr. Farzana Quoquab

So you know, the alternative of plastic sometimes is expensive. If you're talking about jute, if you're talking about cloth, if you're talking about durable plastic, those are actually expensive than single use plastic. So when I'm trying to use those kind of materials for my products that I'm going to sell to the tourist. So then that actually increasing my cost. So why I will take that effort if I am not getting profit. So if I'm not getting support from the surroundings.

[00:13:03.780] - Clark

Got it. So the businesses in the tourism sector may need support from the government to help them make a shift towards sustainability. And that could look like a lot of things could be subsidizing more sustainable materials, for example. And this also gets back to a conversation we've had in a lot of different ways on the show about how to strike a balance between the responsibility of individuals, stakeholders, government bodies, corporate actors. And I think the answer always has to be it's, it's got to be a collaboration of sorts. I think as individuals are concerned, if we're going to be tourists ourselves, just having an awareness that by nature of being far from home, we will produce more waste than we would otherwise. But one of the actors that you also mentioned is the researchers. So I'm curious, what sorts of research is out there on this topic? What sorts of research still needs to be done on this topic, which I know is the topic of your research, in fact, and I know you published one paper that was sort of trying to survey all the research that has been done. Can you tell me about what we know from the literature on this topic?

[00:14:04.730] - Dr. Farzana Quoquab

It was just a simple diplomatic analysis. We just tried to see what other work is going on on this topic and then we realized that a simple bibliomatic analysis, we found that if two countries, they are more advanced on this topic they're working on. This one is the Australia, Spain, Brazil and China, of course the UK US. They are also working on it, but they're after these four countries. But this data based on 2023, it is 2024, so it might be changed by now. Then we found that the journal that is working on this topic was basically marine pollution bulletin. And we found that the topic the researchers working more basically plastic litter accumulation, marine pollution and human health. And also we realized that most of the paper, they are talking about the blame game, plastic is the culprit. But less articles are research coming out by saying how you can solve this problem. We need to do more, we need to do more practical research. We need to see how we can solve the problem. Instead of just saying, keep on saying, it's bad, it's bad, it's bad. We also need to see how we can help.

[00:15:16.180] - Clark

Right? And also, one thing that comes up a lot is the need to shift away from these end of pipe solutions, as it were. But in the meantime, there is still a lot of plastic to deal with. So I'm wondering if there have been any effective policy interventions that you're aware of or any success stories that you can share in addressing tourism's contribution to plastic pollution, sort of before it enters the environment.

[00:15:38.820] - Dr. Farzana Quoquab

Actually there are many. So the good thing is that nobody give up. Everybody's crying, maybe within their capacity or maybe there are lot more can be done. But there are lot of actual strategies, interventions, policy. So for example, I give you a few examples. In June 2022, the Maldives have introduced another plastic ban. Strategies targeting to just ban the single use plastics in 2020. Several municipalities in the Philippines have implemented plastic band bans. In July 2019, Bali and Indonesia has taken a strong stance. They have a slogan like one island, one voice. And then they include local government regulations, community engagement and significant effort to reduce plastic waste. In Sri Lanka, it is another interesting example actually. They introduced waste management solutions like converting plastic waste into eco friendly bricks is very interesting actually. And also in Thailand, because their major income come from the tourism, they also introduced plastic waste management roadmap. It includes policies to reduce single use plastic ban. And as I mentioned earlier, in Malaysia, also in 2009, Penang, one of the state, started actually to ban the plastic, single use plastic in supermarkets basically, and then started at different states.

[00:17:12.030] - Dr. Farzana Quoquab

And now it became a common phenomenon. So those are the very actual successful stories. In my opinion, though we can do lot more, but those are also something very promising.

[00:17:24.610] - Clark

Okay, thank you for sharing those. Well, as we start to close out, I want to ask you if you have a message for stakeholders in the plastic tourism about their role in addressing this problem, be it tourists themselves, businesses in the government, any message you'd like to leave with them?

[00:17:42.400] - Dr. Farzana Quoquab

Yeah, I have messages for three parties involved. First of all tourists. I will say that don't play the blame game, be responsible. Because if we are responsible individually, we can actually have a better world. I am misses for the government and the policymakers for doing few things as I name it, like collaborate, invest, invent, empower and enforce. So collaborate meaning collaborate with different parties, different agencies who can help, who can have better technologies, better facilities, better support, better thought process, better ideas, invest. Because without investment we cannot have proper technology, neither to have waste management, not to actually think about alternative to plastic solutions, invent. It is also go hands in hands with all those things. Just now I just mentioned empower, import those kind of players who are trying to have a better environment when they're offering tourism services. We can give maybe subsidies because sometimes, as I said, using environment friendly matters is expensive. So we can give them subsidies, we can actually help them reducing the tax for example, and enforce to have better policies on laws, intervention strategies. And for the researchers, I also have a message researchers like me, including that be practical.

[00:19:20.270] - Dr. Farzana Quoquab

So these basically are my messages for these three different parties involved.

[00:19:27.110] - Clark

Okay, well, thank you so much. The last question I would have for you then is where can people find you and follow your work?

[00:19:34.110] - Dr. Farzana Quoquab

Well, as researchers we have different platforms that, for example, research gate, we have Google scholar platforms, we have Facebook, LinkedIn. So those are the platform people can follow my research publications even if they want to type my name. Presenter Kalkab I think some of my topics, what I'm working on will come out actually perfect.

[00:19:56.340] - Clark

I will be sure to put links to all of that in the episode description so that listeners can find it easily. And this is the part where I thank you so much for giving your time to the show today. Thank you for teaching us how to be more responsible tourists and also for your research in this space.

[00:20:10.080] - Dr. Farzana Quoquab

Thank you so much. I'm very, very glad for this conversation. I enjoyed it a lot.

[00:20:25.140] - Clark

You've been listening to Plastic podcast. You can find more information about this week's guest and links to their work in the episode description. Cover art for the show was done by Laurel Wong and the music you're listening to was done by Tadeo Cabels. I am your host, Clark Marchese and this episode was produced, written and engineered by me. Plastic Podcast is part of a larger network, a sciency podcast called Pine Forest Media. You can find more information about us in the episode description as well or on our website, pineforestpods.com. we've got some exciting science podcasts coming out this year, and a five star rating across platforms and a review on Apple Podcasts as one of the best things you can do to help the entire network to grow. Alright, that's all I have for you today and we'll chat soon. It.