Consumers across Europe would prefer what they buy to be delivered in paper based materials rather than plastic, one of the less surprising findings in the Two Sides Trend Tracker Survey for 2023.
Awareness of how products are packaged has been heightened by the growth of at home shopping with some products arriving in plastic, others in corrugated with a plastic fill for protection and others in corrugated with a fill make from a recyclable fibre.
The 10,000 consumers in 16 countries that filled in the survey were presented with 15 attributes of packaging produced from plastic, glass to metal as well as cardboard or paper. A combination of paper/cardboard came on top for environmental factors, namely for home composting, better for the environment and ease of recycling.
This carried over to shopping bags with paper judged as having the best for composting, recycling and that relabel material are used in manufacture.
The survey found a big swing in terms of where responsibility for deciding on recycled packaging lies. When the Trend Tracker survey was first carried out in 2021, personal responsibility was judged to have the biggest influence according to 33%. Now 39% believe that government and local authorities are best placed to influence decisions about reducing the amount of non recyclable packaging.
There are still 19% that believe individual responsibility can have the greatest impact in reducing use of non recyclable materials in packaging.
The study is carried out every two years on behalf of Two Sides with 1,000 consumers from the UK as part of the overall 10,250 participants.
The report concludes: “Consumers are aware of the impacts that packaging has on our planet, and they increasingly demand that governments, brands and retailers do more to ensure packaging is widely recyclable.” More and more consumers believe that paper based packaging is better for the environment than all other choices.
