Consumers are skeptical of buying recycled goods. Are they right?
Source: https://www.popsci.com/environment/recycled-product-concerns-sustainability/
Author: Carla Delgado
Recycling, or collecting materials that would have been thrown away as trash and reprocessing them into new products, helps reduce this amount of waste and prevents further pollution. Consumers can choose to close the recycling loop by purchasing new products made from recycled materials. Even though people generally have a positive attitude about products made from recycled materials, they don’t always go through with the purchase. There are quite a few reasons why activewear made from recycled water bottles or shoes made with recycled cardboard sounds good in theory but miss your shopping cart. A recent review published in Resources, Conservation, and Recycling found that environmental benefits, perceived risks, and emotions all play a role in positively or negatively influencing consumer acceptance of products made from recycled materials. For instance, products made from recycled materials can be seen as eco-friendly, which makes them more favorable, says Athanasios Polyportis, review author and postdoctoral researcher in the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at Delft University of Technology