Market Survey of Food and Beverage Purchase Behaviours, Commodity Packaging and Plastics in Off-Grid Greater Accra, Ghana and Kisumu, Kenya, 2021

This data set comprises a market survey of foods and beverages and their packaging as sold at a sample of retail outlets in urban Greater Accra, Ghana and Kisumu, Kenya. It also comprises responses to a short shopper questionnaire and all data were collected in areas classified as slums. The data set was collected with the aim of quantifying packaging waste associated with food and beverage purchases. It also aimed to develop and evaluate a low-cost method for identifying plastic resin types in resource-poor settings lacking laboratory facilities. At each sampled retail outlet, observations were made of vendor or consumer packaging behaviours when food or beverage purchases took place. Short interviews were conducted with shoppers. Where foods or beverages were wrapped in plastics, packaging samples were collected and further characterised in a basic laboratory. Alongside recording labelling and other packaging characteristics, the laboratory protocol also completed a simple observation checklist (e.g. testing if packaging floated; how it behaved on cutting), so as to infer the packaging's plastic resin type. The data set should thus be of interest to researchers wishing to understand waste generation and packaging in urban Africa.