Plastic Packaging in People's Lives: Consumer Insights, 2021-2022

The overarching purpose of PPiPL is to fundamentally rethink consumer attitudes and behaviours around food plastic packaging.
The data deposited rerpresents part of the data collected for the Consumer Insights work package of the PPiPL project, centred on the factors that influence consumer households’ consumption and disposal of plastic packaging. This includes the historical, economic, and culturally instituted factors that shape choices; and the material, social, and technical contexts where household interactions with packaging occur.<p>The data deposited under ‘Consumer Insights: Micro Insights’ represents a part of the data collected for a broader three-year project.

The aim of the three-year project overall was to acquire behavioural insights that will enable policymakers and industry professionals to bridge consumers’ attitude-behaviour gap in plastic packaging reduction. Taking the food sector as an exemplar, this research examined the whole packaging supply chain (from production, to consumption, post-consumption and waste disposal technologies and processes).

As part of this project, the aim of the ‘Consumer Insights: Micro Insights’ research was to develop an in-depth understanding of consumers’ everyday experiences of food plastic packaging across personal and social contexts and their plastic-related knowledge.  

An ethnographic study was conducted, focusing on the food-related activities that take place in public and private settings (including the home, the workplace and food shopping environments). Within the scope of this research, we also explored consumers’ divestment of packaging after use, including disposal, reuse, and recycling behaviours.</p>