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Global scoping review of behavioral interventions to reduce plastic pollution with recommendations for key sectors
Summary
This global scoping review synthesized 92 intervention studies from 2015–2023 examining behavioral strategies to reduce plastic consumption, recycling, and littering across business, tourism, education, and community sectors. While nearly half of studies had moderate-to-high risk of bias, the review found that informational strategies were broadly effective and that different intervention types worked best in different sectors, with contextual modifications showing effectiveness across all settings.
Abstract End users of single‐use plastics can help minimize their contribution to plastic pollution via mindful purchasing and waste management. These behaviors can be impacted via behavior change interventions in various key sectors of society. This review set out to summarize recent (2015–2023) peer‐reviewed evidence on interventions aimed at changing the plastic consumption, recycling, and/or littering behaviors of individuals across four sectors: business and retail, tourism and leisure, schools and education, and communities. Systematic literature searches were conducted across multiple databases and resulted in the inclusion of 92 intervention studies. Information on intervention strategy and effectiveness was extracted, and the studies were assessed for risk of bias. Intervention descriptions and outcomes were coded into five intervention categories (informational, contextual, prompts, social, and personal strategies) and synthesized qualitatively to inform future practice in an accessible manner. Although nearly half of the reviewed studies were assessed as having moderate‐to‐high risk of bias (e.g., lacked reliability assessment of outcome measures), limiting confidence in the documented findings, the review concludes that different strategies work in different sectors. For example, informational strategies showed mostly promising results in most sectors, but had mixed effectiveness in the education sector, while contextual modifications were effective across sectors.