Reframing plastic through experiences at a beach clean-up : a frame analysis of experience-based learnings at a beach clean-up for creating knowledge, building responsibility and motivation to shape individuals’ pro-environmental plastic behaviours

The plastic crisis is one of the major environmental challenges of our times. Plastic pollution impacts our health, water, tourism, fishing and overall ecosystem. Plastic debris has accumulated in natural habitats from the poles to the equator. Plastics, defined as synthetic materials composed of...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Busch, Jana Ricarda
Formato: H2
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: SLU/Dept. of Urban and Rural Development 2019
Materias:
_version_ 1855572441551601664
author Busch, Jana Ricarda
author_browse Busch, Jana Ricarda
author_facet Busch, Jana Ricarda
author_sort Busch, Jana Ricarda
collection Epsilon Archive for Student Projects
description The plastic crisis is one of the major environmental challenges of our times. Plastic pollution impacts our health, water, tourism, fishing and overall ecosystem. Plastic debris has accumulated in natural habitats from the poles to the equator. Plastics, defined as synthetic materials composed of polymers, are incredibly versatile: they are inexpensive, lightweight, strong, durable, and corrosion-resistant, with high thermal and electrical insulation properties. Whilst plastic consumption only started a few decades ago, today societies are deeply entrenched in the everyday use of plastic. Literature reveals that the current plastic crisis is sustained through a collective blindness towards plastic and a diffusion of responsibility for the crisis. Behavioural change studies focusing on methods to implement pro-environmental plastic behaviours through a top-down approach, such as providing incentives and nudges to change behaviour, have been shown to be limitedly successful; missing out on involving the individual in the process and creating intrinsic motivation. This study takes a bottom-up approach, focusing on how an individual can change their perception of plastic, understand responsibility, create motivation to contribute to combatting the crisis, and, ultimately, ideally change their plastic behaviours. This can be best grasped through the study of individuals’ plastic frames. Frames provide people with interpretative lenses to make sense of what is going on and indicate what would be an appropriate way to react. In the research, the experiences of individuals at beach clean-up events in Valencia, Spain have been used as the test bed. At a beach clean-up event towards the end of winter, seventeen semi-structured interviews were conducted investigating the experience of participation in relation to plastic. Over a month later, through purposive sampling, a selected number of five interviewees was again profoundly interviewed to further investigate what impacts the participation had had on their everyday life, leading to the extraction of three plastic frames. To conclude, this study offers an empirical exploration on how the experience at a beach clean-up shapes individuals’ plastic frames, and presents the resulting consequences in everyday life.
format H2
id RepoSLU14630
institution Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
language Inglés
publishDate 2019
publishDateSort 2019
publisher SLU/Dept. of Urban and Rural Development
publisherStr SLU/Dept. of Urban and Rural Development
record_format eprints
spelling RepoSLU146302020-06-04T12:50:21Z Reframing plastic through experiences at a beach clean-up : a frame analysis of experience-based learnings at a beach clean-up for creating knowledge, building responsibility and motivation to shape individuals’ pro-environmental plastic behaviours Busch, Jana Ricarda plastic crisis frames behavioural change pro-environmental behaviour motivation responsibility beach clean-ups citzen science project experience-based learning Spain The plastic crisis is one of the major environmental challenges of our times. Plastic pollution impacts our health, water, tourism, fishing and overall ecosystem. Plastic debris has accumulated in natural habitats from the poles to the equator. Plastics, defined as synthetic materials composed of polymers, are incredibly versatile: they are inexpensive, lightweight, strong, durable, and corrosion-resistant, with high thermal and electrical insulation properties. Whilst plastic consumption only started a few decades ago, today societies are deeply entrenched in the everyday use of plastic. Literature reveals that the current plastic crisis is sustained through a collective blindness towards plastic and a diffusion of responsibility for the crisis. Behavioural change studies focusing on methods to implement pro-environmental plastic behaviours through a top-down approach, such as providing incentives and nudges to change behaviour, have been shown to be limitedly successful; missing out on involving the individual in the process and creating intrinsic motivation. This study takes a bottom-up approach, focusing on how an individual can change their perception of plastic, understand responsibility, create motivation to contribute to combatting the crisis, and, ultimately, ideally change their plastic behaviours. This can be best grasped through the study of individuals’ plastic frames. Frames provide people with interpretative lenses to make sense of what is going on and indicate what would be an appropriate way to react. In the research, the experiences of individuals at beach clean-up events in Valencia, Spain have been used as the test bed. At a beach clean-up event towards the end of winter, seventeen semi-structured interviews were conducted investigating the experience of participation in relation to plastic. Over a month later, through purposive sampling, a selected number of five interviewees was again profoundly interviewed to further investigate what impacts the participation had had on their everyday life, leading to the extraction of three plastic frames. To conclude, this study offers an empirical exploration on how the experience at a beach clean-up shapes individuals’ plastic frames, and presents the resulting consequences in everyday life. SLU/Dept. of Urban and Rural Development 2019 H2 eng https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/14630/
spellingShingle plastic crisis
frames
behavioural change
pro-environmental behaviour
motivation
responsibility
beach clean-ups
citzen science project
experience-based learning
Spain
Busch, Jana Ricarda
Reframing plastic through experiences at a beach clean-up : a frame analysis of experience-based learnings at a beach clean-up for creating knowledge, building responsibility and motivation to shape individuals’ pro-environmental plastic behaviours
title Reframing plastic through experiences at a beach clean-up : a frame analysis of experience-based learnings at a beach clean-up for creating knowledge, building responsibility and motivation to shape individuals’ pro-environmental plastic behaviours
title_full Reframing plastic through experiences at a beach clean-up : a frame analysis of experience-based learnings at a beach clean-up for creating knowledge, building responsibility and motivation to shape individuals’ pro-environmental plastic behaviours
title_fullStr Reframing plastic through experiences at a beach clean-up : a frame analysis of experience-based learnings at a beach clean-up for creating knowledge, building responsibility and motivation to shape individuals’ pro-environmental plastic behaviours
title_full_unstemmed Reframing plastic through experiences at a beach clean-up : a frame analysis of experience-based learnings at a beach clean-up for creating knowledge, building responsibility and motivation to shape individuals’ pro-environmental plastic behaviours
title_short Reframing plastic through experiences at a beach clean-up : a frame analysis of experience-based learnings at a beach clean-up for creating knowledge, building responsibility and motivation to shape individuals’ pro-environmental plastic behaviours
title_sort reframing plastic through experiences at a beach clean-up : a frame analysis of experience-based learnings at a beach clean-up for creating knowledge, building responsibility and motivation to shape individuals’ pro-environmental plastic behaviours
topic plastic crisis
frames
behavioural change
pro-environmental behaviour
motivation
responsibility
beach clean-ups
citzen science project
experience-based learning
Spain