Driving meaningful change towards sustainable food packaging practices​

Plastic Packaging in People’s Lives is one of ten university-led research projects funded as part of UK Research and Innovation’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, connected to the Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging (SSPP) Challenge.

The problem of plastic packaging

Plastic packaging occupies a key role in society's global food production-consumption systems. It maintains food preservation and hygiene standards, provides value and convenience to consumers, and supports our increasingly complex food supply chains. ​

​But increasing production coupled with plastic's longevity pose significant problems to human health and wellbeing, wildlife, biodiversity and the natural environment. ​

​Despite ambitious targets and ongoing public debate about the environment and societal impacts of plastic, research suggests consumption practices remain largely at odds with consumers’ views about plastic packaging.​

​This points towards an attitude-behaviour gap and highlights a lack of understanding of the factors that shape, influence, and contextualise this gap.​

Our collaborative approach

Addressing global challenges, like plastic pollution, calls for an interdisciplinary research in search for solutions. The PPiPL project brings academics from a range of disciplines (Marketing, Organisational studies, Waste studies, Management Science and Chemistry) together with 11 industrial partners to translate meaningful insights into practical solutions.​

​Our collaborative approach, combining academic research with industry insights allows us to explore the key challenges and potential solutions across the plastic packaging value chain, from different perspectives.

Our methodological approach

The project involved various methodologies to gather insights and drive meaningful change towards sustainable packaging practices, including:

• an extensive literature review,​
• a household ethnographic study,​
• in-depth interviews with industry experts and representatives,​
• workshops,​
• case studies,​
• site visits and,​
• pilot projects​

​Collectively, these efforts aimed to map the landscape of plastic packaging; explore, understand and appreciate the perspectives and practices of a broad array of stakeholders; and implement actionable initiatives to reduce plastic usage.