American’s Consumption Behavior and Perceptions of Single-Use Plastics

Research Question: This research investigates how American consumers perceive singe-use plastic items and the factors that influence their purchasing behaviors towards these items.

Introduction

Many everyday products in our stores have transitioned from being made of materials like as metals, glass, wood, and paper to being made from plastic. Additionally, many of the single-use products are now made of plastic. Despite its well known harm, plastic is still widely being used. Why are American consumers choosing to purchase these harmful plastic items?

Literature Review

Background

Plastics were originally created by John Wesley Hyatt from cellulose nitrate to replace natural materials that were being depleted due to overuse (Dennis, 2024). It quickly became popular due to it's cheap cost and ability to substitute almost any material.

Above image is a photo of John Wesley Hyatt

Post War Use

Once the second world war began, plastics were considered essential to the war efforts as well as many new technologies. Soon after the war, plastic were used in everyday products such as appliances, furniture, and cooking items.

Above image is an advertisment for Tubberware from the 1950s

What are Single-Use Plastics?

Single-use plastic (SUPs) are general use plastic items that are intended to be used once and discarded after. Some examples of SUPs are plastic packaging and disposable water bottles. However, SUPs are not biodegradable, rather they fragment into small pieces that are then dispersed into the environment.

What are Microplastics?

Microplastics are plastic particles that have fragmented into small pieces less than 5mm in diameter (Chen et al., 2021). Microplastic contains a variety of chemicals such as phthalates, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, bisphenol A, and nonylphenols, all in which lead to significant threat to both environmental and human health.

Impacts on Human Health

Microplastics are found in food, water and air, cosmetics products, personal care products, and clothing.
Research has found these particles in “human blood, semen, kidneys, hearts, and placentas as well as other tissues and organs” (Qiu et al., 2024)
These microplastics find their way into our bodies and are causing significant harm such as inflammatory reactions, cytotoxicity, immunological harm, and abnormalities in reproductive development (Qiu et al., 2024)

Impacts on the Environment

These microplastics pose a significant threat to the environment and wide disruption across ecosystems (Omidoyin & Jho, 2024).
The leaching of these chemicals into the ecosystem is then consumed by organisms
These organisms are experiencing “lethality, growth inhibition, reproductive issues, altered behavior” (Omidoyin & Jho, 2024) and overall disruption to the ecosystem

Plastic degradation and pollution into the environment

Constructs

Environmental Awareness

Environmental awareness is having an understanding of the natural world and how humans’ actions can have an impact on the natural world.
Environmental awareness of the harmful impacts of plastic waste can affect an individual’s choices on interacting with plastic.
An example of this behavior is choosing to recycle or reuse a plastic item.

Consumer Behavior

Consumer behavior is the understanding of a consumer’s shopping habits and the factors that impact their shopping habits and decisions.
Factors influencing consumer behavior are psychological, sociological, and cultural elements.
This construct can influence why a consumer chooses to buy, use, and dispose of an item.

Theoretical Foundation: The Theory of Planned Behavior(TPB)

TPB is a phycological framework that explains how human behaviors is influence by individual's intentions (Steele, 2016). There are three main factors in the TPB framework; attitudes towards behavior, social/subjective norms, and perceived behavior control. These factors can help to explain a consumers shopping behavior.

Attitudes Towards Behavior

Depending on an individuals attitudes towards product will determine if the individual would purchase theses items.

Social/Subjective Norms

Social norms can be placed by the consumer's social circle, social media, and trends
A consumer can feel social pressure to engage in a certain behavior.

Perceived Behavior Control

Perceived behavior is an individuals perspective of how difficult it is to perform a certain behavior.
This perception can be based on the consumers past beahviors, anticpated obsitcles, and avalible resources.

Framework Diagram

Methods

Surveys

Surveys can collects data of consumers' behaviors and perceptions of single-use plastics on a large scale.
A survey would be multiple choice questions of if, and how often, a consumer chooses to purchase single-use plastic items.
The surveys would be anonymous to avoid the influence of social norm.

Interviews

An interview can collect data on a deeper understanding of an individual's perceptions and motivations behind their consumer behavior.
Differing from a survey, an interview will give the induvial an opportunity to explain their level of environmental awareness and consumer behavior

Both the surveys and interviews will be conducted nation-wide and amongst a variety of demographics to collect the most accurate data of American consumers' behavior and perception of single-use plastics. Surveys are quantitative data and interviews are qualitative data. Both of these methods are valid and necessary when conducting this research as together they provided a comprehensive understanding of both actions and motivations of the consumers behaviors and perceptions.

References

Bhat, A. (2021, February 26). Consumer Behavior: Definition, factors and methods |. QuestionPro. https://www.questionpro.com/blog/consumer-behavior- definition/#what_is_consumer_behavior?

Chen, Y., Awasthi, A. K., Wei, F., Tan, Q., & Li, J. (2021). Single-use plastics: Production, usage, disposal, and adverse impacts. Science of the Total Environment, 752(752), 141772. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141772

Dennis, L. (2024). A brief history of the use of plastics. Cambridge Prisms: Plastics, 2, e19. doi:10.1017/plc.2024.17

Devi, A. N., Gew, L. T., & Ooi, P. B. (2022). A Systematic Review on Knowledge, Attitude and Practices towards Single-Use Plastic. Journal of Materials in Life Sciences (JOMALISC), 1(1), 45–56. https://doi.org/10.11113/jomalisc.v1.17

Fischbach, S., & Yauney, B. (2023). Social Cognitive Theory and Reciprocal Relationship: A Guide to Single-Use Plastic Education for Policymakers, Business Leaders and Consumers. Sustainability, 15(5), 3946. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15053946

Heidbreder, L. M., Bablok, I., Drews, S., & Menzel, C. (2019). Tackling the plastic problem: A review on perceptions, behaviors, and interventions. Science of the Total Environment, 668, 1077– 1093. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.02.437

Omidoyin, K. C., & Jho, E. H. (2024). Environmental occurrence and ecotoxicological risks of plastic leachates in aquatic and terrestrial environments. Science of the Total Environment, 954. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.176728

Qiu, X., Li, L., Qiu, Q., Lan, T., Du, L., Feng, X., & Song, X. (2024). Medical exposure to micro(nano)plastics: An exposure pathway with potentially significant harm to human health that should not be overlooked. Science of the Total Environment, 957. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.177743

Steele, A. (2016). Theory of Planned Behavior - The Decision Lab. The Decision Lab. https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/psychology/theory-of-planned-behavior

US EPA, O. (2015, November 13). America Recycles Day. Www.epa.gov. https://www.epa.gov/circulareconomy/america-recycles-day

Wagner, M., & Lambert, S. (2018). Freshwater Microplastics. https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/42902/1/2018_Book_FreshwaterMic roplastics.pdf#page=210

Walker, T. R., McGuinty, E., Charlebois, S., & Music, J. (2021). Single-use plastic packaging in the Canadian food industry: consumer behavior and perceptions. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00747-4

Xanthos, D., & Walker, T. R. (2017). International Policies to Reduce Plastic Marine Pollution from single-use Plastics (plastic Bags and microbeads): a Review. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 118(1- 2), 17–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2017.02.048

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