Consumer’s attitude towards green packaging: a study on Trincomalee district

Abstract

The current rapid growth in the economy and the patterns of consumers’ consumption and behavior worldwide are the main cause of environmental deterioration. As the environment continues to worsen, it has become a persistent public concern in the developed countries and has recently awakens developing countries to the green movement. In Sri Lankan context, central environmental authority has conducted a survey, according to that Trincomalee District has been identified as poor in recycling and it cause to environment pollution and arisen of most health issues. In this context, this study initiated to find consumers’ attitudes toward green packaging with special reference to the Trincomalee District with four objectives, the main objective is to identify whether consumer attitudes towards green packaging is positive or not in Trincomalee District and in addition to that to identify the most effecting factor or factors on consumer attitudes toward green packaging and also to identify the relationship between independent variables (Demographic factor, Product characteristics, Environmental concern and Government role) and dependent variable (Consumer’s attitude towards green packaging) and to identify whether consumers attitude towards green packaging is varied according to their demographic factors. 200 consumers were considered for this study in Trincomalee District and they were selected by using random sampling method and data were collected from by using structured questionnaires. Descriptive analysis, correlation analysis, regression analysis and chi square analysis were used in analysis and key findings are consumer’s attitude towards green packaging in Trincomalee District is strong positive, most effecting factors on consumer’s attitude towards green packaging is product characteristics, all the independent variables have positive relationship with the dependent variable and consumer’s attitude towards green packaging is varied according to income level except other demographic factors. Finally, it was concluded that consumers in Trincomalee District highly concern about their environment and their health condition. Therefore, findings of this research contributed to government to identifying what action should be applying to prevent the environment pollution in Trincomalee District and contributed to manufactures by identifying what would be the consumer’s response if manufactures used environmental friendly packaging materials for their products.