Abstract
Plastic products, waste, and microplastics have become major issues worldwide, and various countermeasures have been considered. In Japan as well, the "Plastic Management Strategy" was established in May 2019 with milestones including ambitious numerical targets. Here, following the basic principle “3R + Renewable”, various efforts have been started for the prioritized actions. However, consumers might not be fully aware of their use in various products, and their consciousness and behavior are just started to be grasped. Therefore, as a visualization and/or communication tool that enables consumers, companies, governments, etc., we devised "Plide (Plastic Identification) Chart" to share information of consumers’ consciousness and behavior on a wide range of plastic products, and to have dialogues and discussions in the future. For the purpose of verifying the applicability of the chart, necessary data was obtained from the questionnaire survey and plotted. A hierarchical cluster analysis was performed on a chart consisting of two axes, "necessary / un necessary" and "avoidable / unavoidable", based on the results of the consumer questionnaire survey. And plastic products were classified into six groups. We were able to understand the consciousness and tendency of consumers, and obtained findings that contributed to the examination of short-term countermeasures.
