Proscription and its impact on anti‐consumption behaviour and attitudes: the case of plastic bags

Abstract

This paper empirically examines whether proscription of a habitual consumption item can act as a mechanism to develop anti-consumption behaviour and attitudes. The paper tracks a legislated retail ban on single-use polyethylene plastic bags, analysing 1167 interviews with shoppers before the ban's announcement, during a 4-month phasing-out period (and demarketing campaign), and when the ban was in full effect. Two hundred and fifty three interviews are repeated with the same individuals to allow identification of individual-level attitudinal and behavioural change. Anti-consumption is typically conceptualised as a phenomenon based on choice. This research investigates how shoppers react when forced into anti-consumption behaviour, and how supportive voluntary anti-consumers are of others being made to change. Grouping shoppers according to their level of voluntary anti-consumption of plastic bags before the ban, the analysis finds that shoppers who voluntarily showed anti-consumption behaviour were the only group showing any voluntary shift in anti-consumption behaviours during the phasing-out period. These shoppers are supportive of forcing others to show anti-consumption, while the level of behavioural and attitudinal resistance from shoppers that showed little or no voluntary anti-consumption is low. These findings support the use of proscription to achieve anti-consumption behaviours, however, proscription does not necessarily engender full anti-consumption attitudes. This study adds to knowledge on anti-consumption and shopper resistance to proscriptive interventions designed to reduce socially undesirable behaviours. It provides further evidence that demarketing campaigns, without accompanying negative reinforcers, may be insufficient to achieve widespread behavioural change alone.

Charges for plastic bags: Motivational and behavioral effects

“…He, 2010; Sharp et al, 2010) that can be affected by undesired factors as social desirability or a misperception about one's own behavior. On the other hand, studies that used objective measures typically only measured behavior on an aggregate level (i.e., number of plastic bags divided by retail sales index adjusted for inflation; Hasson et al, 2007), so there is no information about the effects of incentives on individual performance.…”

“…On the other hand, studies that used objective measures typically only measured behavior on an aggregate level (i.e., number of plastic bags divided by retail sales index adjusted for inflation; Hasson et al, 2007), so there is no information about the effects of incentives on individual performance. Also, many studies evaluated the effectiveness of pricing policies by comparing plastic bag use before and after the implementation of the charge but without including adequate control groups Hasson et al, 2007;Sharp et al, 2010). Therefore, we cannot be completely sure whether effects are caused by the implementation of the charge, or to another factor not taken into account and thus not under control of the researcher.…”

“…Evidence indicates that public support of plastic bag charges tends to be high (Convery et al, 2007;Poortinga et al, 2013;Sharp et al, 2010), and that customers who support the policy use their own bag more frequently (Sharp et al, 2010) and consume less new plastic bags per week (He, 2010) than non-supporters. These results suggest that the plastic bag charges might be acting on consumers' previous pro-environmental attitudes (reflecting intrinsic motivation), as most consumers seem to support plastic bag charges and behave in line with the policy aims.…”

Starch/polyester films: simultaneous optimisation of the properties for the production of biodegradable plastic bags

“…The packaging sector is responsible for the greatest utilisation of plastics, which corresponds to more than a third of the Brazilian consumption [1] . The plastic bags provided by markets, which are resistant and convenient, represent a large portion of all the plastic bags produced and supplied to consumers [2] . These data show the inherent need for the development of alternatives for the substitution, or at least the partial substitution, of this type of packaging with another material that is ecologically favourable and that exhibits properties similar to those of synthetic plastics.…”

Bags for Life: The Embedding of Ethical Consumerism

“…Single-use plastic bags have become ubiquitous and the environmental impact of their disposal is well documented (Sharp et al, 2010). James and Grant (2003) and Lewis, Verghese and Fitzpatrick (2010) found that polymer-based 'bags for life' have lower environmental impacts than all types of singleuse bags.…”