Most Shoppers Don’t Avoid Plastic Packaging
1st July 2026
According to the UN Environment Programme, the world can expect to generate 408 million tons of waste by 2040. If nations around the world successfully adapted their systems, including getting better at reusing plastics and improving their processes for sorting recycling, then this total could be brought down to 216 million tons.
While multiple surveys show that there is overwhelming global support for a ban of some single-use plastics and consumers have also repeatedly claimed that the topic is important to them, Statista data shows that this is not necessarily trickling down all the way into shopping behaviors. According to a survey carried out by Statista Consumer Insights between April 2025 and March 2026, only between a third and a tenth of shoppers in most surveyed countries say that they avoid plastic packaging when buying food. This rate was especially low in Japan, known for its high use of single-use food packaging, at 7 percent. It stood at just 17 percent in the United States. India was one of the outliers of the survey. There, almost half of urban respondents said they had an eye on the matter. A comparably high level of respondents said the same in Vietnam, potentially showing that in countries where supermarkets still play a smaller role in daily shopping, plastic waste can be considered more by consumers.
The survey also reveals something about the nature in which respondents answer questionnaires. When asked if they actively try to reduce harmful packaging, many people tend to respond that they do. This is called social desirability bias, meaning that respondents might exaggerate their positive deeds in order to feel better about themselves. The answers displayed in the chart are from a multi-pick question in which respondents could pick all options that apply to them from a list of food consumption statements. Despite being free to check all boxes, many respondents focused on a few central statements, disregarding some of the desirable, but potentially less true behaviors.
They’re asking the wrong questions. Most shoppers don’t get to choose the packaging in which their products come. If they did, they might choose something other than plastic. But they want the product, and, however much they might prefer that it not come in plastic, they don’t get to chose—they have to take what the maker of the product offers. Nobody is going to choose one product over another merely based on the packaging unless it’s a total commodity, and even then price is far more dispositive.