Do Consumers Really Want to Reduce Plastic Usage? Exploring the Determinants of Plastic Avoidance in Food-Related Consumption Decisions

Abstract

The mass production and use of plastics over the past decades is now posing a threat to the environment due to increasing pollution. The industrial transition towards more sustainable plastic alternatives has already started, but the process will require years to become truly feasible from an industrial and economic standpoint. In the meantime, a significant contribution to limit plastic-related environmental impact could arise from consumers’ daily consumption choices. This study aims at investigating the determinants of consumers’ decision to avoid purchasing single-use plastic eating utensils, food products with multiple plastic packaging, and plastic water bottles while grocery shopping. The results of the Structural Equation Model reveal that environment- and health-related concerns associated with plastics are key drivers of plastic avoidance. Instead, subjective knowledge and the importance attached to the commitment of third parties for tackling the plastic issue only indirectly affect consumer behaviors with regard to plastic avoidance.

The Effect of COVID-19 on the Environmental Impact of Our Lifestyles and on Environmental Concern

“…Second, we found some explanatory variables more closely related to the individual: personality traits, beliefs, and values [7,9,12,23,24]. Third, we found variables related to the 'relation between the individual and nature': environmental concern and awareness, environmental knowledge, and connectedness to nature [8][9][10]12,25,26]. A specific factor that many researchers do not include in their analysis is the influence of past or present behaviour on future or expected behaviour [11,25].…”

“…Next, we examined if there is a difference between different components of the EF (food intake, energy and paper use, car use, use of public transportation use, and travel behaviour). There is a large amount of the literature studying and measuring environmentally relevant behavior at the level of households or individuals (sometimes called pro-environmental behavior) [7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. In all interpretations of environmentally relevant behavior, it is assumed or defined that the behavior is an act of free will (of course, constrained by prices and preferences) to preserve the environment by limiting the impact of human activity.…”

Awareness of Citizens for the Single-Use Plastics: Comparison between a High-Income and an Upper-Middle-Income Economy of the Easter Mediterranean Region, Greece and Lebanon

“…They are frequently used in several environmental issues, such as climate change [23,24], energy use [25,26], water or waste management [27][28][29], or other environmental issues [30][31][32]. Even if there are several studies in the literature related to plastics, such as advantages/disadvantages of plastics, environmental impacts from the use of plastics and management of plastics at the end of life [33,34], few papers deal with the opinion of citizens about the use of single-use plastics [35,36].…”

Building Collective Ownership of Single-Use Plastic Waste in Youth Communities: A Jamaican Case Study

“…It is known, of course, that positive environmental attitudes do not always translate into good environmental actions (Heberlein 2012). However, understanding attitudes towards SUPs is clearly important (Cavaliere et al 2020). The components that affect attitude and behaviour are often classified into socio-demographic factors (age, gender, income status and education level), cognitive factors (environmental awareness) and affective factors (attitudes and values) (O'Brien and Thondhlana 2019).…”