Analysis of Brazilian consumers' perceptions of cosmetics packaging from a circular economy perspective

Abstract

Nowadays, a lot more packaging is used to protect and carry products, since they are no longer sold in bulk. Brazil holds the world's fourth largest consumer market for Hygiene, Perfumery, and Cosmetics—HPC in the world. It can therefore be inferred that there is a large consumption of packaging in this sector. However, the country has with the Brazilian Solid Waste Policy (BSWP), which obligates the implementation of reverse logistics for packaging and introduces the concept of shared responsibility—everyone in the chain is responsible for the waste. This paper aims to analyzed the perception of consumers of the sector of HPC related to the disposal and reverse logistics of packaging of beauty products under the Circular Economy‐CE perspective. For this purpose, we applied an online survey with consumers in the HPC sector in Brazil. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. It was identified that consumers lack knowledge about the concepts of CE and BSWP, indicating a need to improve the environmental awareness of the population. However, most consumers showed interest in companies that are concerned with the destination of used packaging.