Reducing Plastic Bag Use Through Prosocial Incentives

While excessive plastic use has severe ecological consequences, the distant nature of these consequences may limit their effect on individual behavior. One possibility to address this problem is link behavior more direct consequences. Pro-environmental researchers adopting approach typically try change people’s by providing them with monetary incentives. Here, we pursued an alternative strategy linking pro-environmental prosocial Takeaway customers a fast food restaurant were informed that, for every unused bag, small donation would be made charitable organization. In comparison baseline and control conditions, likelihood using restaurant-provided bag was than halved when plastic-bag refusal led such addition, tested whether effectiveness incentives depended size type organization (prosocial vs. environmental) receiving incentive. latter analyses revealed some promising trends, they did not allow definitive conclusions about parameters. Hence, while our field experiment provides support general incentives, research needed determine which are most effective in shaping other environmentally relevant behaviors.