Consumer use and attitudes towards plastic bags

Consumer use and attitudes towards plastic bags1. Introduction1.1BackgroundIn the past, if people wanted to buy commodity, taking special tools that were made of bamboos and other materials was necessary. This was inconvenient. For the purpose of convenience, Hill (2005) pointed out that plastic bags were a common means of carrying merchandise, which were manufactured from high density polyethylene and aimed to be used once, free of charge. They were instruments that were used for collecting things in bulk. With the development of society, plastic bags have been playing an important role in our daily life. Stores offera variety of products to meet customer demands. Nevertheless, plasticbags cause serious environment pollutions due to world wide use.According to Harvard dictionary(2008), environment refers to ‘the nature which a plant or animal lives.’ As a result, environment pollutions are harmful to human’s health and affects people’s life.However, governments encourage consumers to use green bags that are defined as 'bags can be long lasting used rather than throwing them away'.(Ramp, 2011)1.2PurposeThe purpose of this report is to investigate the situation of using plastic bags in Nanchang City, China, and as well as to examineconsumer attitudes towards plastic bag use.1.3 ScopeThe report focuses on investigating the local attitude towards plastic bag use, as well as measures consumers are taking to reduce the use of plastic bags. Furthermore, the report looks at people’s behavior when dealing with plastic shopping bags. It also examines the effects of plastic bags on environment.1.4 MethodA survey was conducted of 60 people in the Nanchang city. Thesurvey was carried out between 26th and 29th of April, 2011. The questionnaire contained 10 items which were divided into two main sections. The first section contained questions about the respondents and general use of plastic bags. The second part contained separate questions for business organizations about their attitudes towards plastic bags and measures to be taken to reduce plastic shopping bag use.2. Survey findings2.1 Respondent profileA total of 24 men and 36 women were surveyed. More than a half of people (59%) fell in age between 18-25 years old, of these 63% were women and 37% were men from those 60 respondents. More than half ofrespondents were general consumers. And the others were business organization members.2.2 General consumer’s behavior2Figure 1 shows the percentage of plastic bags is used on average every day in Nanchang City. The majority of respondents (70.4%) mostly use between one and two plastic bags per day. Another respondents(23.7%) use three to four bags every day. In contrast, there is a tiny majority of people (1.3%) who use more than six bags. While only a small percentage of respondents(1.7%) never use plastic bags.Consumers go shopping at a supermarket, open markets, grocery shops, and other places. Most of them (40%) do supermarket shopping, and the others (30%) use open markets to shop. 18% of customers likes shopping at grocery shops, while only a small minority of people (12%) of them frequently go to other places to buy goods.2.3 General respondent’s opinions about using plastic bagsThe main reasons given by consumers for using plastic bags are convenience (87%) followed by light quality of bags (73%), and low price of bags production (65%). Only several respondents don’t use bags as a reason.A small proportion of respondents take bags from home when they go shopping, while others (62%) do shopping after working.Respondents who still use plastic shopping bags after governments published the commands regarding the cost of bags.There are only 5 respondents who believe that the acceptable fees for plastic bags is 1 yuan, but they don’t want to use any kinds of expensivebags. A total of 40 consumers think that plastic bags’ charge of 0.2 Yuan is acceptable. Whereas 9 customers are willing to pay 0.4 Yuan every bag, followed by 6 respondents accept 0.5 yuan of the bags' fare.2.4 Means to deal with plastic bagsFigure 5 shows the means of how people deal with plastic bags every day in Nanchang. There are several ways to handle bags which are produced by consumers in their daily life.Nearly a third of respondents (38.3%) report that they regard shopping bags as rubbish bags. The result from the Xiamen plastic bags survey (2007), which is executed in Xiamen University about reduction use of plastic bags in 2007, also have a similar result in which only a small proportion of respondents (11.7%) recycle use plastic bags, which can be used for several times. Similarly, there is a small percentage(5%) of customers who use other means to settle shopping bags.2.5 Measures to solve problems of environment imposed by bagsFigure 6 shows the probability of respondents to reduce the plastic bag use. According to Figure 6, most of consumers(43%) are likely to reduce consumption of plastic bags and change their habits to take bags from home. However, there is a small amount of respondents(9%) that probably do not cut down the use of bags.Measures to be taken to reduce the plastic bag use: recycling, reuse, educating people, and charging money for bags.Encouraging people to recycle bags and use them less is given as one of measures by 22.9% of respondents, while 20% of respondents reuse bags to make a reduction of bags use. At the same time, 17% of respondents believe that stressing the dangers to consumers is a good method to educate people. The opinion of the rest of them is charging money for users to decrease the bags use.3. Discussion3.1Age and convenience factorsThe age group 18 to 40 is over represented(45% of all respondents) having different responses. The vast majority of people (87%) claim that conveniency is the most important reason of using plastic shopping bags since consumers (73%) suppose that plastic bags’ quality is very light . The result reveals that most of respondents whose age are between 18 and 25 are lazy, and busy with works, so choosing plastic bags is a good wayto carry goods offered by supermarkets or other grocery shops. Therefore, more and more young adults prefer to use bags provided by shops rather than taking bags from home. Nearly two-thirds of customers (65%) state that the working time of supermarket or small shops is quite long, and shops offer bags to them as long as working. Besides, wherever you stay, you can find shops.3.2 Recycle and reuse plastic bagsThe characterization of secondary use which is defined as 'use after carrying goods from the supermarkets to home' (Harvard dictionary, 2008) of plastic bags is based on a survey. The survey results show that 38.3% of bags are used as trash bags, and 23% are reused for packing other products in or outside the home. Therefore, less than a quarter of plastic bags, taken for free at stores, have a secondary use. The distribution of secondary uses is important, since it assists us in identifying the bags that are most likely to fly into public spaces.Plastic bag dealt by 11.7% of respondents is recycle use. Like Xiamen survey (2007), our survey also find that consumers use almost 200 kilograms on average every day; however, the recycle rate of bags is quite low in comparison to other ways of doing with bags. This research seems to indicate that spreading around of bags becomes the main reasons of small percentage of recycle bags. According to figure 8, only 5 respondents thought bags were too light. While a total of 15 consumers considered the bags were very dirty. On the contrary, there was a large amount of respondents (20%) rated spreading around as a reason of low recycle rate. This can possibly be interpreted that consumers are difficulty in recycling bags due to light and disperse bags.3.3 Damage to landfills and wildlifeThe waste survey 2005(Shaldag, 2006) states that thin public bags account for 0.2% of the weight of arriving at landfills. External costs related to land filling plastic bags are conveyed by the landfill tax introduced in July 2007(Ministry of Environmental Protection, 2008). According to several managers of landfills, the risk of plastic bags flying away from the landfill sites to nearby environment is minimal, and depends on the design of the site boundaries. Best practice of landfill can prevent the scattering of bags beyond the site's limits. As to bags, some of them reach the landfills directly and some after secondary use. Research conducted in Australia (Tinney, 2002) reveal similar data on thepercentage of bags that accumulate outdoors in open spaces. To be effective, any policy measures aimed at decreasing this specific environmental problem should succeed in reducing bags use outdoors. The main potential damage to animals associated with bags results from false identification of the bags is food. The inability to digest it may cause clogging of the digestive system, possibly leading to death. According to Shalmon (2008), ‘the size of this po pulation has declined to 25% of its original size within 6 years. It has to be noted that there is no unequivocal evidence that plastic bags are the cause of death.’3.4 Expenses factor of plastic bagsFigure 4 represents some findings. Second-thirds of consumers surveyed are of opinion that the cost of every bag is 0.2 yuan. About 8.3% of respondents have a reception of 1 Yuan. Thus, most of them are not willing to pay for quite expensive bags. In this case, paying for bags can help ease environmental problems caused by bags.4. ConclusionsOn the basis of the findings, the following conclusions have been reached:1. Plastic bags have widely used in Nanchang since shops provide different kinds of products to consumers. A large amount of using plastic bags lead to serious environment pollutions. This report investigates thesituation and measures to be taken to reduce bags use and the influences caused by bags.2. Most people use between one and two bags (70.4%) every daily, only few people never use plastic bags or use more than six bags.3. Most of respondents (87%) consider that using bags is very convenient. This indicates that almost every stores offer plastic bags to consumers.4. 0.2 yuan is an acceptance charge for a great part of consumers as a result of reasonable fees.5. Under half of consumers throw plastic bags away directly instead of recycling and reusing them in terms of low recycle rate.6. The two main bad effects of bags are land and air pollution, and damage to wildlife.8. The most effective measures to reduce plastic bags consumption are recycle and using friendly packing to environment like paper bags and cardboard bags.RecommendationsIt can be recommended that :1.The establishment of government monitoring practices is necessaryfor the situation related to plastic carrier bags.2.The imposition of profits tax on plastic bag manufacturers.3.The initiation of a comprehensive educational programme forconsumers to enable them to learn more about plastics so that they can make environmentally-friendly decisions in their purchases.ernment investments in recycling research to create low-cost andenvironmental harmless technologies for recycling plastics.Bibliography:1.Antle, J., & Heidebrink, G. 1995, ‘Environment and deve lopment:theory and international evidence. 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