Investigating Australian Consumers' Knowledge of Recycling Single Use Plastics

Running head: RESEARCH AND INSIGHT
Research and insight
Name of the student
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RESEARCH AND INSIGHT1
Topic: Investigating the knowledge of the Australian consumers regarding recycling of single
use plastic items
1.0 Background
Plastic has become the integral part of the modern lifestyle in Australia due to its
lightweight, effectiveness and cheap prices in packaging. However, it has significant harmful
impact on the surrounding environment (Bartolotta and Hardy 2018). The amount of waste going
for landfilling has been growing at an unsustainable rates which is an indication of the increased
environmental population and change in the purchasing behaviour of the consumers (Xanthos
and Walker 2017). Even though effective recycling efforts have been taken by different
organisations controlling the use of single use plastics have been a problem for the Australian
government. Therefore, it makes it even more necessary to understand the impact of using single
user plastics and reducing the reliance to develop sustainable measures for protecting the
environment (Khan et al. 2019). Poor disposal of waste is a problem for the country which has
significant harm on the surrounding environment.
According to Xanthos and Walker (2017), recycling for products is pointless in the
current situation as it end in landfilling. Therefore, the sustainable way is to reduce the use of
single-use plastics in respect to the reusable ones available in the market. This is a global
challenge for the country after China has taken the initiative to ban single use plastics
(methodrecycling 2019). Even though technological solution have been developed which
includes biodegradable plastics but they are not sufficient to deal with the problem which
indicates the change in perception of consumers is necessary to successfully dealing with the
problem (Bartolotta and Hardy 2018). Therefore, awareness and education among the people is
one of the most effective way of changing the behaviour of the consumers especially in the use
of single use of plastics. Australia uses almost 7 billion plastic bags of which half of them are
plastic shopping bags. Moreover, Australians drop more than 36,000 tons of plastic bags for
landfilling in a year which equates to 4,000 bags per minute (oceancrusaders 2020). Furthermore,
only 10% of the Australian consumers recycle their plastic bags which costs the government
more than $4 million to clean up the litter (oceancrusaders 2020). It implies that less than 1% of
the plastic bags are reused in Australia which is a significant problem for the country
(oceancrusaders 2020).

RESEARCH AND INSIGHT2
2.0 Business and Project Objectives
In light of the above context, the purpose of the study is to identify the purchase
behaviour of the consumers in respect to single usage plastics. The purpose of the business is to
develop sustainable plastics to reduce the consumption of single use non-recyclable plastics. The
company wishes to contribute to the society by reducing the use of single use plastic and increase
their market share in the industry of bio degradable plastic products by 5%. In order to do so, the
project aims to understand the knowledge of the Australian regarding the use of single use
plastics and their recycling habits to understand their perception and behaviour so the company
can develop strategy to improve the sales of their products.
3.0 Research Objectives
Therefore, based on the objective of the project the following objectives have been
developed:
 To examine the perception and attitude of Australians about recycling of products
 To investigate the awareness of the consumers regarding the single plastic recycling
 To evaluate the frequency of recycling among the consumers
Research Questions
What do Australian's know about how to recycle these items?
What items are they recycling and how frequently?
4.0 Research Method
Research methodology is the process of highlighting the key tools, techniques and
frameworks necessary for gathering data and examining it based on the research objective. This
study will use a single research design where a primary data collection method will be used to
collect data (Kumar 2019). On the other hand, the study will use the Saunders research
methodology as the method for developing the research design. Saunders research design is used
to describe the methods and tools used in every stage of data collection and analysis along with
the advantages and disadvantages of using of each method (Saunders et al. 2015). This study
mainly focuses on performing a market survey to address a business problem which implies that