Seventeenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

A label optimized for communication must garner consumer attention, facilitate understanding of the message being presented and ultimately inspire an appropriate action regarding behavior. For packaging to be disposed of in the least impactful manner, consumers require access to information about package systems on the label as well as accurate disposal options for their region. This is especially important for package systems that have multiple components that would require separation before both or either could be recycled. One labeling strategy to help consumers with sorting and disposing of packaging in the United States is the How2Recycle Label, which includes information about package material and recycling instruction, however it is not universally adopted. This study seeks to benchmark the information content and placement of messaging regarding package composition and disposal is prevalent on food packaging in the United States. To conduct this assessment, inclusion criteria for which product-package systems are surveyed, sampling criteria, and message coding criteria were developed. Then comprehensive data from the Mintel Product Database were gathered to analyze the packaging for thematic trends in the placement and types of package content and disposal messaging.