The Role of Food Packaging Design in Consumer Recycling Behavior—A Literature Review

Babak Nemat, Mohammad Razzaghi, Kim Bolton and Kamran Rousta
Additional contact information
Babak Nemat: The Swedish Centre for Resource Recovery, University of Borås, SE-501 90 Borås, Sweden
Mohammad Razzaghi: Faculty of Applied Arts, University of Art, Tehran 1136813518, Iran
Kim Bolton: The Swedish Centre for Resource Recovery, University of Borås, SE-501 90 Borås, Sweden
Kamran Rousta: The Swedish Centre for Resource Recovery, University of Borås, SE-501 90 Borås, Sweden

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 16, 1-23

Abstract: Household waste sorting at the source is an essential part of the waste management system in many countries. Correct sorting of this waste, including food packaging waste, is cost-effective, it facilitates the recycling process and enhances the quality of the recycled product. Although there is a growing body of research that studies the effect of different attributes of food packaging on household recycling behavior, the effect of these attributes on the sorting of the food packaging waste is not well known. This contribution reviews work that studies the relationship between attributes of food packaging and consumer sorting behavior. The review highlights the potential of the visual attributes and the quality of packaging as a communication channel for encouraging consumers to sort the food packaging waste. The efficiency of the waste management system and the quality of recycled products can hence be affected by the proper design of food packaging.

Keywords: food packaging; packaging design; packaging waste; sorting behavior; household waste (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/16/4350/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/16/4350/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:16:p:4350-:d:256863

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().