A STUDY ON CONSUMER ATTITUDE TOWARDS PLASTIC BANNING AND ITS IMPACT ON GREEN MARKETING

 

 

A STUDY ON CONSUMER ATTITUDE TOWARDS PLASTIC BANNING AND ITS IMPACT ON GREEN MARKETING

    

1.1 INTRODUCTION

 

         Plastic bags were first introduced in 1977‟s in America (Williamson, 2003) and gained an increasing popularity amongst consumers and retailers because of theirlight weight, easy availability, sturdiness and low-price. Till today most of the consumers use it regularly and wastefully as they get it for free from the retail outlets. While their production cost is low, the public cost and the environmental cost of producing and using disposable plastic bags is enormous. The adverse impact of plastic bags, including production energy costs, limited lifespan, increasing landfill content and inability to biodegrade has received significant attention worldwide over the years.

                

            The Act Plastic Shopping Bag Ban (the ban) was introduced on the 1st of November 2011, following a four month transition period commencing 4 July 2011. The ban is a high profile issue in the Act and it is important to fully understand consumer attitudes and reactions to the ban. With the ban having been in place for ten months, the ACT Government’s Environment and Sustainable Development Directorate (the Directorate) is conducting an interim review of the ban, exploring its impact on consumer shopping behaviour and the community’s opinions regarding it. January 1, 2019, Tamil Nadu’s dream of becoming plastic-free, at least partly, will be put to litmus test. Keeping this in view, the state government has released a list of items that have been banned. On World Environment Day this year, the Tamil Nadu government had announced a ban of non-biodegradable and single-use plastic and had recommended the use of environmental-friendly products. 

       

              The environmental consciousness of the public and consumer has been increasing due to emergence of campaigns through media and public education during the century. The green concept is embraced by a lot of organizations and rabid environmentalists. Green product such as product without hazardous materials, energy saving components or recyclable items is very common in the society. There are also individuals who give priority to green product which bears eco-labels during their purchase.

 

   The term “green” has become the major elements driving million of consumer throughout the world, to find out how they live are brand loyalty is being continuously redefined. Companies nowadays have to integrated appropriate green strategies into their operational activities, product development processes, and marketing activities to achieve competitive advantages in the saturated markets. Thus we see that both the marketing and consumers are nowadays focusing on green products and services.

     

 

 

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The overall objective of the project is to reduce plastic bags through increasing green marketing products (eco-friendly)

 

1) To find the consumer attitude to shifted from plastic product to reusable eco-friendly products

 

2) To investigate the differences between the consumer attitude and its impact  of the green marketing product development in nowadays.

 

3) To find out the influencing factors to the perception and practice of the consumers and green marketing development regarding plastic usage.

 

This objective has already been achieved since some people have shifted from plastic carryout bags to reusable carryout bags. This should be rephrased to encourage the use of reusable bags or no bag at all. In the proposed ordinance the consumer has three choices (i.e.) a recyclable paper bag, a reusable bag, or no bag. If consumers all choose either recyclable paper bags or no bags,or a combination of the two, the objective would fail. Again the use of reusable carryout bags would increase in the proposed ordinance, but not necessarily in all of the five recommended alternatives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BANNED PRODUCTS IN TAMIL NADU:

As a result of the ban, the following products will be banned come January 1, 2019:

·        Food processing and packing plastic used in hotels.

·        Plastic sheets used for table mats and tablecloths.

·        Thermocol plates used for serving food.

·        Plastic coated paper plates.

·        Plastic bags used for gifting during special occasions. 

·        Plastic coated tumblers used in TASMAC, small vendors, serving coffee, tea, water on occasions. 

·        One-time usable plastic coffee and tea cups used in shops and homes.

·        Normal plastic made tumblers in commercial use. 

·        Thermocol tumblers and cups.

·        Plastic coated paper bags which are used in shops for packing products for the buyers.

·        Water packets selling by small vendors around Tamil Nadu.

·        Plastic straws used for serving cold drinks, milkshakes in shops, theatres and hotels.

·        Plastic carry bags used for everyday usage by people.

·        Plastic printed flags in sale in shops. 

·        Plastic cases containing milk, curd, oil etc are excluded from this ban. Also, excluded from this ban are biodegradable plastics and packaging plastics like water bottle from big firms by the government.

 

ALTERNATIVE GREEN MARKETING PRODUCTS:

1.     Plantain leaves, Areca nut plates

2.     Aluminium foils

3.     Paper rolls

4.     Lotus leaves

5.     Glass / metal tumblers,

6.     Bamboo, Wooden Products

7.     Paper straw

8.     Cloth / Paper / Jute bags

9.     Paper / Cloth flags

10.                        Ceramic wares

11.                        Edible Cutleries

12.                        Earthen Pots.

CHAPTER -II

LITERATURE REVIEW

 

Consumer’s Attitudes towards Green Marketing

 

                Consumer’s attitude represents what consumers like and dislike and consumers’ product purchasing decisions were based on their environmental attitudes (Blackwell et al., 2006). And Mansaray and Abijoye (1998) identified that, the quality of the environment depends critically on the level of knowledge, attitudes, values and practices of consumers. According to Thogersen (1999), concern for the environment is link with the attitude of consumers and into some extent consumers can be actively be a part to solve environmental problems by recycling and choosing environmental friendly products and packages. Consumer’s attitude towards green marketing affects more factors such as demographic conditions of the consumers, product characteristics of the particular product, consumer’s environmental concern and government role regarding environmental eco-friendly products.

 

 

Government Role

           January 1, 2019, Tamil Nadu’s dream of becoming plastic-free, at least partly, will be put to litmus test. Keeping this in view, the state government has released a list of items that have been banned. On World Environment Day this year, the Tamil Nadu government had announced a ban of non-biodegradable and single-use plastic and had recommended the use of environmental-friendly products. The State House Select Committee had also recommended the restricted use of plastic for daily-use products such as milk, curd, oil and medicines.Hence, government plays a vital role by influencing peoples’ buying behavior, to buy products that contain in green marketing.

 

Green Marketing

 

           According to M. J. Polonsky and P. J. Rosenberger (2011), environmental marketing, more popularly known as green marketing or sustainable marketing is an effort by a company to design, promote, price and distribute products in a manner which promotes environmental protection. Green marketing has be defined by them as, “All activities designed to generate and facilitate any exchanges intended to satisfy human needs or wants such that the satisfaction of these needs and wants occurs, with minimal detrimental impact on the natural environment”. Green marketing today is a vital component of marketing research due to the pressure on firms to present eco-friendly behaviour and due to the increasing media exposure. Proper adoption of product packaging and presentation of these improvements to the public have promoted the growth of green marketing over the years. Environmental or green marketing practices as a result of compulsion due to legislative pressures and pressures of environmental groups have changed to genuine efforts to behave in an eco-responsible manner and improve sustainable marketing plans.

 

Demographic Factors And Green Product

 As a demographic factored age, gender, and income influence to the ecological friendly buying of consumers. Green purchase intention correlated positively with every age and income expected for education. Many studies have shown significant difference between men and women in environmental attitudes (brown & harris,1992 ; taka, kuitunen, & tynys,2000) with men having more negati ve attitudes towards the environment compared to women (tikka et al., 2000). Women were more likely to buy product with environmental friendly packaging. Because they believe that product was better for the environment (mainieri, barnett, veldero, & unipan, 1997).

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

An exploratory research design and a quantitative research approach have been undertaken in this research study. Secondary data were initially collected from books and the internet, and then a well-structured questionnaire was prepared for collecting the required primary data. There were two sections in the questionnaire which related to the characteristics of the respondents and the impact of the green marketing activities on their buying behaviour. A number of open ended and close ended questions have been incorporated into the questionnaire. A survey was conducted in the different areas, and the sample of respondents included consumers in various retail stores. A convenience sampling method of non-probability sampling has been adopted in this research study and the samples have been drawn from 97 respondents.