Week 4. A big impact in a behaviour change is the enabling, reinforcing and predisposing factors.
To get inspired for this week, I did some research into going plastic free. One suggestion I came upon was getting a plastic free drink bottle. When I started looking for one, I found there were a lot of options out there, all of which came at quite a price. I suppose they are meant to last longer than plastic drink bottles and they don’t have the chemicals leaching into the water that I am drinking. But it would be good to find affordable option that isn’t plastic but is just as cheap. I will have to think on this more.
Enabling, reinforcing and predisposing factors
A big enabler of plastic use is cafes around campus and supermarkets that package and wrap their food in plastic. For my flat dinner, I made classic sausages and mashed potato with peas. Sadly, the sausages came in plastic wrapping, as did the frozen peas. I need to discover more places that will enable my positive behaviour and not reinforce my negative behaviour of consuming plastic.
My goal for next week is to find a way to buy meat that is not wrapped in plastic.
The prevalence of plastic in supermarkets and cafés reveals a predisposing factor (existing belief, attitude or cultural norm) that will make my behavioural change project more difficult. That is the cultural norm of convenience. Items are continually being chosen for their convenience due to peoples’ lives becoming increasingly busy.
I have found that this change project has opened more conversations on sustainability. First, I thought standing by no to plastic would be a marginalized view and would be an area that is not talked about so much or people very interested in.* People are in fact open to conversation, just today had a lengthy discussion about an eco-fair a couple of my friends went to, and the different products they found there. This brought me social reward as I strengthened those relationships and in turn reinforced my behaviour and reinforced my decision to find sustainable alternatives to plastic.
My goal this week was to not buy junk food that was wrapped in plastic packaging. I mostly achieved this goal except for a slice of banana bread that I bought for one afternoon tea.
Let's see how I do next week in my journey...
*Remember this was written in 2017, before consumers came together to ban plastic straws and plastic bags. While there a lot more awareness around the issues of sustainability, there is as always, more to be done. So share my blog, start conversations, and act on behalf of the planet.