The future designs of ocean plastic products

Abstract

Consumers’ awareness of environmental issues has increased over the years, resulting in a higher demand of pro-environmental product alternatives. The abundance of ocean plastic waste and the societal pressure for Europe to manage its plastic recycling system creates an opportunity for designing recycled ocean plastic products. Therefore, using ocean plastic for new product development should be encouraged. In general people have a strong positive attitude towards recycling and ocean plastic products. Cleaning up the oceans is considered a must and giving retrieved ocean plastic new purpose is beneficial. However, people currently still feel somewhat confused in how to behave more pro-environmental due to a lack of ease and lack of knowledge. Also they are not quite able to distinguish recycled products from other (non-recycled) products. In addition, they have reservations towards ocean plastic products which make to direct personal contact and therefore prefer to be made aware of the fact that a product is made from ocean plastic during purchase. Nevertheless people have faith in the future potential of ocean plastics. People especially like products made from ocean plastic that are easy accessible, produced in large scale, approachable and long lasting. The most suitable product categories to fulfil all these wishes are packaging and furniture. Through examination of the two different product categories it is possible to make more generalised design assumptions for ocean plastic products in order to be adopted by consumers more easily. This is valuable for promoting large scale implementations of ocean plastic products. The products representing these two product categories as used in this research are a bottle of dishwashing liquid and a chair. In order to find out how to design these types of products, information has been gathered regarding the importance of different design elements of ocean plastic products. Highly ranked design elements for ocean plastic products are the shape typicality and the recognisability of an oceanic pattern/texture. Four design alternatives have been created per product in order to test the effects of these design elements. The bottles and chairs were either typically shaped or atypically shaped, and either had an oceanic pattern or did not have an oceanic pattern. The visual appearance of products can evoke different responses. These responses have been analysed for ocean plastic products. It can generally be concluded that triggering a stronger ocean plastic perception through appearance elements proves to be successful. It is possible to communicate the presence of ocean plastic through design elements effectively. Products with an ocean plastic pattern/texture evoke more oceanic feelings and are found attractive. Since attractiveness is correlated with purchase intention, ocean plastic products with (specific) patterns/textures are likely to be bought more frequent. In addition, typical products evoke a higher purchase intention than atypical products. People currently feel more positive about buying less durable products from ocean plastic which increases the purchase intention for these less durable products. The perceived lifespan of durable products can be positively affected by adding oceanic patterns/textures. Since attractiveness is considered less important for durable products, this increased durability perception could have a positive effect on the purchase intention of such products.