Human Behaviour and Marine Plastic Pollution: Chapter in Andrady et al. (Eds.), Plastics and the Ocean: Origin, Characterization, Fate, and Impacts

This chapter summarizes the human dimension in plastic pollution, with a particular focus on human behavior and its determinants. It reviews antecedents of behavior such as risk perception, motivation and social norms. The chapter presents the early results of a scoping review of recent behavior change interventions. Why individuals behave the way they do in the environmental context is a key question of interest in environmental psychology. Having summarized the main determinants of human behavior, the chapter presents the early results of a scoping review of recent academic literature on behavior change interventions designed to reduce plastic consumption and waste in four specific sectors: business and retail, tourism and leisure, schools and education, and community. A number of behavioral studies on plastic pollution in the Global South have emerged in recent years. Simmons and Fielding conducted a study on the psychological predictors of sustainable waste management practices in Indonesian coastal communities.