Thinking about how we consume

Part of the solution to solving the problem of plastic pollution is changing how we think. In a panel led by broadcaster Kim Hill, Sharon Humphreys of Packaging New Zealand and the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor Professor Juliet Gerrard explain the need for people to change how they think about consumption and how they go about buying products.

Transcript

Kim Hill

You’ve also said we need to engage society to address consumption. Do you mean quantity of consumption?

Sharon Humphreys

I mean the whole – well yes, quantity, quality of consumption, quantity of consumption, how we’re consuming. So it’s, again, it’s a big, big social question. It’s a big social behavioural picture that’s looking at, well yes, do we actually, when we purchase something, what are the credentials that we’re looking at? What’s important to us? And how do we actually then project that in terms of our consumption habits? So it’s really a matter of actually thinking about how we consume.

Kim Hill

Juliet, have you got any suggestions to the government to affect consumption patterns in that way? Incentives for example?

Professor Juliet Gerrard

The very last part of the report at the end of the year is going to be led by the psychologists who are interested in how to change behaviour. So they use examples like sunhats. So 20 years ago, kids didn’t wear sunhats at school, and now they all do. So how do we get people to be more mindful of packaging in the same way that that behaviour changed – much more complicated problem than sunhats, but at least there’s some tools out there to understand how you get that sort of cultural transformation.

Acknowledgements

Video excerpt from Science and the Plastics Problem, directed by Shirley Horrocks and produced by Point of View Productions.