Ghanaian Ubuntu and Malaysian Confucian Sustainable Plastic Waste Management and Leadership Styles in Afro-Asiatic Intercultural Perspective

On a global scale, the cleaning up and the reduction and recycling of plastic wastePlastic waste has become increasingly significant as the production of plastic is expected to be on the rise, and hence, its waste progressively causes environmental pollutionEnvironmental pollution and health problems. In the past, plastic wastePlastic waste management in the Global South has often been implemented top-down with a focus on technical solutions, such as the setting up of nets to fish up litter from the bottom of the sea. A problematic aspect of these solutions, which on other levels can be great, is that technologyTechnology does not move local people to think about the dark sides of plastic, nor does it create environmental awareness. This chapter, therefore, focuses on the embeddedness or inclusivity of plastic wastePlastic waste management in local practices in the Global South. More specifically, it will concentrate on the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu and Ubuntu-like elements in Akan philosophy and culture in Ghana and (neo) ConfucianismConfucianism in MalaysiaMalaysia to gain an intercultural philosophical understandingIntercultural philosophical understanding of inclusive, sustainable plastic waste management. More based on pathos and ethos than logos, this inclusive management aims to reach and mobilise the local community to adopt a cooperative attitude in the management of plastic wastePlastic waste.