Behaviour and Environment - A Behavioral Study of no Use of Plastic Bags' Intention

Abstract

The perception of the environmental impact of current consumption patterns and the increasing centrality of this discourse in international environmentalism’s mainstream bring new perspectives and arguments concerning the consumerism of contemporary Western societies. From this perspective, the central question of this project was: “What is the intention of not using plastic bags?” Using as a theoretical reference the Planned Behavior Theory, which seeks to understand and predict human behavior in a general way from a reduced set of antecedent variables, we developed an intersectional survey consisting of 226 interviews. Data were processed by equations modeling and treated in Amos 16.0 software. The measurement model considered the mental constructions forming TCP. It was possible to identify as a major contribution of this study that the perceived behavioral control is the most influential factor on the intended not use of plastic bags, hindering the adoption of the behavior of not using plastic bags. Perhaps the fact that it is a settled habit, which involves several routine actions, such as the habit of going to the grocery store and have to plan in advance to take the alternative shopping bag or cart for packaging purchased products, or to count on ecological alternatives offered by commercial establishments, is a major and determining impediment for behavioral change.