Introduction

The food system has been highlighted as a site for fruitful implementation of the principles of the circular economyFootnote 1 [1]. Until recently, however, the main focus has been on food production and little attention has been paid to consumption, although a circular economy will require the transformation of both [2, 3]. Indeed, a circular economy may require new roles for, and more active, consumers [3].

Within the literature on circular food systems and the consumer, most studies focus on consumers and food waste [4,5,6]. While minimizing food waste is one key part of a circular food sector, the delivery of food is another cornerstone of the sector. Indeed, food packaging serves to protect the food and thereby facilitates its transportation, distribution, and storage, which are key aspects of a modern food system characterized by geographical spread and global value chains. In addition, the food packaging is used to communicate to consumers about the food product and its packaging. Indeed, the packaging design can contribute to food purchases and eating habits and have paved the way for new consumption practices, such as convenience food and takeaway, through the introduction of single-use packages [7, 8].

However, food packaging also causes rising concern for the environment due to its high production volume, short usage time, and problems related to waste management and littering [7, 8]. Because of the prevalence of single-use packaging—recently addressed in the European Commission’s “Single-Use Plastics Directive”—as well as the essential role of packaging in the safe delivery of food products, circular food packaging has become a key issue for sustainability and a promising way to reduce the environmental impact of food packaging [8, 9].

By turning the focus to consumers and circular food packaging, the present literature review complements existing reviewed knowledge and, together with previous reviews [10, 11], offers an overall picture of our current knowledge of circular consumer behavior in the food sector which can inform future studies of the need for further research in this area. Consequently, the aim of the present literature review is to offer an overview of our knowledge of consumer behavior and circular food packaging.

The following text is organized as follows: the next section discusses how this review complements previous reviews and thus contributes to the existing literature; the “Method” section presents our systematic literature approach and the “Findings” section the findings; and the article ends with a concluding discussion.

Previous Reviews

Recent years have witnessed an increased academic interest in the circular economy, which is also reflected in the number of literature reviews on the topic. Many of these literature reviews have addressed either technology or the supply chain [12] and limited attention has been paid to consumer behavior. The transition to a circular economy has thus so far mainly been seen as a producer-led process and has tended to underestimate the role of the consumer in the transition, although consumer acceptance is seen as crucial for realizing the circular economy [9, 13, 14]. Indeed, many studies take the producer perspective by focusing on how producers can design for circularity [15]. However, consumer interactions with products and circular systems may develop in unexpected ways. One example is the rebound effect, also called Jevon’s paradox, whereby a product’s improved efficiency is offset by increased consumption [16], which thereby affects the environmental footprint of the circular solution [17].

Lately, the authors have begun to address this gap and to consider the consumer in relation to the circular economy. The recent systematic literature review by Camacho-Otero et al. [13], for example, addresses consumer behavior within the circular economy academic literature over the years 2015–2018. The review used search words such as product service systems and remanufacturing to capture circularity, which, arguably, are biased toward a certain type of circular economy. Consequently, the review mostly captured studies of car-sharing and electronics and only very few studies dealing with perishable goods and frequent purchases, such as food. Moreover, the review did not include recycling as a search word, despite it being a core circular economy strategy [18].

The present review complements the existing literature reviews in two key ways. First, as outlined, the study complements existing reviews within the circular economy and consumer behavior. Specifically, the present study complements Camacho-Otero et al. [13] by including a broader range of circular economy r-words, for example, by recognizing recycling as one core circular strategy, as well as by focusing on frequent purchases and perishable goods, using the case of food packaging.

Second, the present review extends the reviewed knowledge within the circular economy and food sector by shifting the focus from food waste to circular food packaging. Within the literature on consumers and food, both Hebrok and Boks [10] and Roodhuyzen et al. [11] review those academic publications on consumers and food waste between 2000 and 2015, and thus, the literature on food waste has been reviewed several times. Because of this fact, the present work turns the focus to circular food packaging, a currently hot topic because of the current phase-out of single-use plastic packaging [19].

Highlighting the potential for circularity in the food sector and the importance of consumer behavior therein, do Canto et al. [20] attempt to provide an overview of consumer behavior in a circular economy food sector, including both food waste and packaging. However, the literature review by do Canto et al. [20] only included the search word circular to capture circular behaviors, thereby again overlooking the large literature on recycling and other r-words such as reuse and reduce. Consequently, by using the search term circular and the years 2016–2020, do Canto et al. [20] only captured 46 studies, while seeking to cover a very broad area of consumers, circularity, and food.

The present review seeks to address the gap in the literature on circular food packaging and consumers, but also to avoid the pitfalls observed in previous reviews. To do so, the present review includes a larger range of circular economy search words, e.g., reduce, reuse, and recycling, in addition to circularity. This way, our review also captures studies that do not explicitly use the term circularity, e.g., studies conducted before the term circular became fashionable within academic literature. These search words are based on the work of Reike et al. [21] with the aim of more fully capturing different kinds of circular strategies. In addition, the present review used input from a reference group consisting of practitioners from the food packaging industry to further ensure that relevant search words were not overlooked.

The present review analyzes the reviewed knowledge both in terms of the type of circular strategies studied and the different phases of the food packaging’s life cycle, an approach adopted by Sundqvist-Andberg and Åkerman [8] while reviewing literature on circular food packaging and governance. This way, the present review informs us of both the circular strategies in need of further study and which phases of the packaging’s life cycle we know less about.

Method

To achieve the aim of the study, i.e., to offer an overview of our knowledge of circular consumer behavior and food packaging, a systematic literature review has been conducted covering academic research published in peer-reviewed journals within the area of consumer behavior and circular food packaging. The present study uses the methods for systematic literature review by Tranfield et al. [22], since the method is established and tested [12, 13, 20].

The Review Process

The systematic review process is further inspired by Merli et al. [23] and follows five steps, summarized in Fig. 1: formulation of the research question, material collection, descriptive analysis, category selection, and material evaluation.

Fig. 1
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Summary of the systematic literature review process, inspired by Merli et al. [23]

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Defining Search Strings, Words, and Phrases

Since the present study seeks to synthesize academic knowledge in the intersection of the circular economy, the consumer, and food packaging, we combined search words to denote these three areas in the search string. To identify search words that would capture circular economy studies, we consulted the review by Reike et al. [21] of the most commonly used circular economy terms in the literature. This way, we identified search words such as reuse, recycling, and reduce. When choosing search words, we conducted scoping studies [22] to discover if the search words generated any hits and the words return, reduce, remanufacture, and repurpose (also found in the review by the Reike et al. [21]) could be excluded from the search string since they did not capture any studies or, alternatively, only a handful of irrelevant studies.

To further capture circular economy studies, we also reviewed the use of search words by Camacho-Otero et al. [13]. The term closed loop, for example, is derived from this review. Terms such as renting and leasing, also included in Camacho-Otero et al. [13], are more contested as circular strategies [16, 24]. In any case, the terms renting and leasing are unlikely to be used in the food sector and were thus excluded.

To ensure that no relevant keywords were missed, a reference group of industry stakeholdersFootnote 2 was put together, who met with the researchers online to discuss the keywords. This meeting resulted in further relevant search terms. In order to capture circularity, the terms suggested by the stakeholders were circular, repeat, return, deposit, and deposit-refund system.

To capture consumer behavior, we considered common terms used in the literature and settled on three terms: consumer, household, and citizen. All of these resulted in relevant hits in our scoping studies.

In order to capture studies focusing on food packaging, the terms food packaging and food container were included. In addition, the stakeholders suggested the terms beverage, on-the-go, single-use, out-of-home, and alimentary. Conducting further scoping studies on these stakeholder-derived key words, some words did not capture any studies (on-the-go, out-of-home), while some words only captured irrelevant studies (alimentary). However, other stakeholder-derived search terms resulted in relevant hits and added literature that was not covered by any of the previous search terms. To include single use as a term may seem contradictory, but this term is commonly used to signify food packaging and is often used in contrast to circular food packaging strategies. To ensure that not only solid food packaging was captured but also beverages, the term beverage was suggested by the stakeholders.Footnote 3

In each search string, these three types of terms were combined, i.e., each search string included one search term to capture consumer, one search term to capture food packaging, and one search term to capture a circular strategy. The search strings, exemplified in Appendix 2 (Tables 2 and 3), were applied to article titles and abstracts in two databases, Scopus and Web of Science, commonly used in literature reviews [13, 23]. The search was limited to peer-reviewed journal articles and reviews, thereby excluding gray literature, book chapters, and conference papers. In addition, we conducted a separate search in the new journal Circular Economy and Sustainability since it is highly relevant to the topic of review but not yet included in these databases. In this journal, we only included search terms for food packaging and consumers since all articles in this journal are relevant to a circular economy.

In Scopus, the academic fields social science, economics, business management and accounting, psychology, and environmental science were included in the search, thereby excluding fields such as chemistry that might include the search words, although the research is not concerned with consumer behavior. In the Web of Science, the following fields were included: Environmental studies, Environmental science, Management, Business, Economics and business finance. The search included all available years in the two databases including 2021.

The search resulted in 1058 initial article hits, 659 in Scopus, and 399 in Web of Science. Sorting out the duplicates, the search resulted in a total number of 487 articles. Even though the search was carefully planned and conducted, all articles in the search were not relevant. Therefore, a number of criteria were used to segregate captured studies that were irrelevant to the aim of the literature review, with the exclusion criteria being:

  • Studies not concerned with food packaging/containers (217)

  • Studies not concerned with consumer behavior or action (201)

  • Studies not concerned with circular economy (14)

  • Studies not peer-reviewed (7)

  • Studies not available entirely in English (1)

The search in Circular Economy and Sustainability resulted in 16 articles out of which two articles fulfilled all criteria (i.e., circular, food packaging, and the consumer). Consequently, the final number of articles is 49 (47 articles from Scopus and Web of Science and 2 from the journal Circular Economy and Sustainability).

Findings

As a first step in the analysis, we conducted a descriptive analysis of the extracted articles, such as distribution over time (Fig. 2) and the journal outlets (Table 1). As a second step, we conducted a “category selection” in line with Merli et al. [23], which involves identifying structural dimensions and analytical categories into which the collected material can be organized. Similar to other literature reviews, our structural dimensions involve research data (Fig. 3) and methods (Fig. 4).

Fig. 2
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Number of articles per year

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Table 1 Journals where the reviewed articles are published
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Fig. 3
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Data used in the articles

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Fig. 4
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Methods used in the articles

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In terms of analytical categories, we conducted an analysis of which circular strategy is studied (Fig. 5) as well as which phase of the packaging life cycle is studied, an approach previously used by Sundqvist-Andberg and Åkerman [8] to organize reviewed research of food packaging governance. Appendix 3 offers a detailed overview of the articles—country, packaging materials, and CE strategies—including the main study focus and specific focus for each CE strategy. Appendix 4 offers a detailed overview of articles in terms of the studied phase of the circle, such as design purchase/consumption and post-consumption. In addition, Appendix 4 displays how the articles were coded, which is shown in the column labeled “tags.”

Fig. 5
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Circular economy strategies discussed in the articles

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Descriptive Analysis

The descriptive analysis started with an overview of when the selected articles were published and in which journals they were published. As can be seen in Fig. 2, research articles began discussing circular food packaging and consumer behavior in the 1970s. Although up until the last number of years, only a limited number of articles discussed this subject, from 2018, there has been a trend break and significantly more articles have been published. In 2021, there were as many as 19 articles discussing consumer behavior and circular food packaging and this development is likely to continue in the coming years given the public debate on the matter. Since research on the circular economy has rapidly increased in other areas as well, the great interest in circular food packaging is in a sense no surprise [12].

When studying in which journals these articles appear, the top three are Sustainability (n8), Journal of Cleaner Production (n4), and Resources, Conservation and Recycling (n4). As can be seen in Table 1, five journals have published two articles on the subject during these years. The remaining 23 articles are published in different journals. Thus, historically, the academic knowledge has been scattered across journals. However, the recently published articles are concentrated in mainly two journals: Sustainability and Journal of Cleaner Production.

Structural Dimensions

Most of the empirical data used in these articles originate from European countries and the USA. Half of the articles consist of data from Europe. Although data was also collected from other parts of the world, data from Europe and the USA thus dominate the material. Three articles use data from multiple sources, one with data from Twitter and two globally. Three articles are literature reviews and not included in Fig. 3.

The methods for data collection used in the articles are summarized in Fig. 4. Surveys were the most common data collection method (n17) followed by mixed methods (n11), the latter of which were, for instance, combinations of qualitative and quantitative data, such as studying tweets or secondary data in combination with observations. Five articles (n5) used quantitative data, such as secondary data or other than survey data, while four (n4) face-to-face interviews, three (n3) literature reviews, two experimental (n2) including a field intervention, and one article with experiments of washing food packaging waste. Five articles (n5) were categorized as other and involved a case study, a workshop, a review of legal documents, a model analysis, and a netnography.Footnote 4

Analytical Dimension: Circular Economy Strategies

Figure 5 shows how studies focusing on the different circular strategies have been distributed over time. The early studies, from the late 1970s to early 1980s, typically report from the “bottle bills” legislations introduced around this timeFootnote 5 [25,26,27,28]. As seen in Fig. 5, these systems were often reuse systems, and thus, the reuse literature was vibrant in the early studies but has declined as a focus on recycling instead emerged. The academic literature on reuse has only returned during the last number of years, from 2018 and onwards.

Interestingly, while our search string did not include compostable, edible or refuse as circular economy strategies, a number of examples of such strategies still occurred in our sample, captured by the other circular economy search words used in the search string. For example, Marazzi et al. [29] discuss the environmental consequences of consumers adopting compostable food packaging. D’Astous and Labreque [30] instead investigate how consumers’ perception of responsible food packaging (defined as recyclable, reusable, or compostable) influences consumers’ perception of naturalness and healthiness and, in turn, purchase intentions. On the other hand, Gill et al. [31] find that consumers who considered themselves knowledgeable in terms of environmental issues were more likely to choose compostable packaging.

One of the reviewed studies investigates edible coating as a circular food packaging by conducting a sensory testing with young consumers aged 19–30 [32]. The fact that these studies were captured in this review shows that certain circular economy strategies are more relevant for certain industries and not others. Although edible and compostable, for example, work as circular strategies for food packaging, they do not for all other kinds of circular products.

Reduce

Eight articles mention the reduce strategy. A first stream of studies discusses consumer perceptions and intentions to reduce packaging (n2). Perceived consumer benefits with no packaging are for example the ability for the customer to decide on the amount of food and feelings of naturalness and sustainability [33]. The number of European consumers who would consider buying food without food packaging appears to increase over the last number of years, particularly consumers concerned with lifestyle and health. Of the total number of German consumers, 50% try to buy products with less packaging [33]. Similarly, 50% of Portuguese consumers try to reduce the use of plastic packaging [34]. Despite this fact, sales of packaged food, such as fresh-cut vegetables, have in reality increased [33].

A second stream of studies investigates how consumers in practice seek to reduce the use of food packaging (n3). Two studies do so by using digital data [35, 36], while one uses an experiment [37]. Among the former, Heidbreder et al. [36] use tweets, a.k.a. microblogs, to study Plastic Free July, a campaign seeking to reduce the use of single-use plastics, and find that reuse was the most commonly promoted circular economy strategy with reduce as a second and recycling as the third. By also using digital empirics, Bissmont [35] finds that Swedish zero waste bloggers seek to reduce waste by not disposing of things into the municipal waste system, e.g., in the bin. Such behavior involves avoiding food packaging altogether, for example, by buying bulk and unpacked food items. Since bulk is not always available, this waste minimization practice involves visiting several stores. While the bloggers strive to avoid packaging altogether this way, they often end up using a reuse strategy by bringing their own long-lasting reuse containers to the store.

To test how consumers reduce the use of single-use cups, Keller et al. [37] use an experiment. Among the different ways to reduce the use of single-use cups, one strategy is to reduce the consumption of hot beverages on the go. The authors find that the latter strategy was unpopular among consumers and that reducing consumption on the go generally involves consuming hot beverages in place, using a reusable cup.

Lastly, a third stream studies potential consumer actions for reducing waste (n3) from a societal or stakeholder perspective. Stakeholder opinions and suggestions for preventing plastic waste are studied by Steinhorst and Beyerl [38], where stakeholders from all sectors believed that consumers should change their behavior and suggested more financial incentives, creating further plastic free options and providing information about the sustainability of different packaging options. Naturally, this way, the amount of material is reduced, for example, less plastic is required with reuse containers [29], yet the need for packaging material still remains, although of a different sort and in lower quantities. Instead, Chakori et al. [39] highlight obstacles to consumer actions and a reduction of packaging by arguing that the use of packaged food is driven by reduced time for household shopping and cooking and that it remains challenging to expect consumers to take the entire burden of living an ecologically sustainable lifestyle while also meeting their responsibilities and aspirations in the current growth-driven system.

To summarize, though previous research has both studied consumer perceptions and intentions and actual reduce practices, it has also taken a societal perspective. What several of the reviewed reduce studies show is that it is difficult for consumers to reduce the use of food containers, and thus a reduce strategy tends to become a reuse strategy, for example, when consumers reduce the need for disposable cups by having a coffee at the café instead [37]. Consequently, it is necessary to define what it is that is reduced (the amount of material, the need for packaging altogether, etc.) in the reduce strategy, which is rarely specified in these studies, and how this differs from the reuse strategies.

Reuse

In the sample, 21 articles discuss consumers and the reuse of food packaging. These articles can be broadly divided into five research streams. A first stream classifies different types of reuse strategies (n2), a second stream discusses consumer perceptions of reusable packaging (n2), a third stream studies how to make consumers adopt reuse (n10), a fourth is concerned with the impact of consumers’ reuse of food packaging (n4), and the fifth studies reuse in a non-commercial setting (n4).

Among the studies that classify different reuse strategies (n2), Greenwood et al. [40] differentiate between refill, return, and repurpose. The refill strategy involves the consumer purchasing, storing, and cleaning the reusable container and bringing it to the point of food purchase for a refill, while in a return strategy, the retailer or producer instead takes care of the reusable containers, their washing, and storage. In contrast, repurpose involves the consumer using a container for another purpose than originally envisioned, sometimes using an original single-use packaging for further use in the domestic setting, for example, for storing cookies at home. Reuse strategies are further divided by Muranko et al. [41] into exclusive reuse, when a single consumer keeps the product during its lifetime, and sequential reuse, when a reusable product is used by multiple users throughout the product lifetime and returned after each use to a provider.

Within the second stream (n2), Otto et al. [33] find that consumers rate food packaging based on supposed reusability rather than actual environmental impacts. For this reason, consumers tend to buy less sustainable packaging than intended. Furthermore, D’Astous and Labrecque [30] find that whether a packaging is seen as reusable in fact had a statistically significant impact on consumers’ intention to buy it.

A third stream discusses how to make consumers participate in reuse systems (n10). As Greenwood et al. [40] note, although 85% of people in consumer research want to buy products in reusable packaging, only one in five do so. Studying UK consumers, Greenwood et al. [40] argue that it is the consumers’ lack of familiarity with return systems that makes them hesitant toward return systems. The authors further find that consumers express a preference for repurpose and refill to return systems.

Several of the studies in this stream have investigated norms that induce consumers to choose reusable containers. For example, Berger [42] finds that regular normative feedback about the current prevalence of a target behavior can transform sustainable consumption from a minority behavior into a social norm within weeks. However, this can also create a destructive dynamic if the targeted behavior is in the minority. As a potential solution to this problem, Loschelder et al. [43] investigate dynamics norms in an experiment at a university café. While the café already “taxed” consumers choosing disposable cups, the researchers introduced signs with dynamic norms, describing how customers are increasingly turning to reusable cups, which increased the use of reusable cups during the intervention period. Studying both refill, return, and reduce, Keller et al. [37] underline that the decision to choose reusable packaging consists of several stages and that different interventions may be suitable in the different stages. Working with norms, for example, is useful when the consumer is about to decide whether to go for reuse, whereas consumers who have already chosen the reusable alternative may need support to incorporate this choice into their daily routines.

A number of these studies are not only concerned with how to make consumers adopt reusable packaging but also to return used packaging so that it can be reused, often as part of a deposit-refund system (DRS) [26,27,28, 44,45,46]; see the “Post-consumption” section for more details. Among these, Cottafava et al. [45] study a voluntarily introduced reuse DRS of cups in local bars, cafés, and events and find that such a system can also work in these settings.

A fourth stream of studies discusses the impact of consumers’ reuse of food packaging (n4), both in terms of economic efficiency [25] and the environmental impact of packaging reuse, such as reducing plastic waste [29] and greenhouse gas emissions [40, 47]. Focusing on how to reduce the commonly found macroplastics in European freshwater environments, Marazzi et al. [29] find that reusable water bottles may save 6741 tons of plastic a year, reusable take away containers 1290 tons a year, and reusable coffee cups 1500 tons of plastic a year.

In terms of the environmental impact of reuse, a key issue in any reuse system is “trippage” i.e., the number of times a container is returned to the consumer. For each trippage, the cost of the often heavier and more expensive reuse containers decreases. Using a life cycle approach, Simon et al. [47] show how, due to the lower demand for new bottles, the GHG impacts of reuse bottles will sink below the impacts of one-way bottles already after the first and second refill. In addition, Greenwood et al. [40] also conduct life cycle analyses and find that while a steel container requires more reuse (13 to 33 times) than plastic (5 times) to be more climate friendly than a single-use plastic container, the steel container also lasts much longer (100 to 200 uses compared to plastic’s 50). Moreover, the authors find that the return system was slightly more environmentally friendly than refill because commercial dishwashers are assumed to be more efficient than domestic ones. However, this difference was minimal and the most significant difference in environmental performance is between single-use and reuse containers overall.

A fifth stream of studies discusses reuse strategies in non-commercial settings (n4), two of which focus on social media [35, 36]. The bloggers in a study by Bissmont [35] replace disposable items with reusable items of long-lasting materials such as metal or glass bottles for water, coffee mugs, and straws. Often, the bloggers own these items themselves and bring them to a lunch place for refill in order to avoid single-use packaging. Bringing their own reusable packaging is also seen as a subtle way to try to influence the lunch place or café toward more environmentally friendly practices. The other two studies take an anthropological approach where Resnick [48] studies the use of reusable glass jars for food jarring practices by Romani in Bulgaria. Bachórz [49] instead describes the circulation of food containers among family members in a Polish city. Similar to food stores, the family food system expects the recipient to return the reusable packaging to the food provider. In the family setting, this means that the children have to visit their parents to return the empty food containers. Guests or visitors, on the other hand, are allowed to throw the food boxes away.

To summarize, the majority of reuse studies have focused on how to make consumers participate in reuse systems, either by choosing reusable cups in the first place or by returning the reusable item. We thus know much about these aspects, for example, how norms can motivate consumers to choose reusable cups. Interestingly, some of the reuse articles study this strategy in non-commercial settings, for example, the repurpose of reusable packaging. The diversity of the studies in non-commercial settings shows that there is room to explore such systems further. Repurposing of reusable packaging is likely to affect the commercial reuse systems, e.g., if reuse packaging this way leaves the system, but it can also effectively prolong the packaging’s life, which affects the overall environmental impact. Consequently, both types of studies may benefit from each other. Nevertheless, only a handful of studies have investigated the impact of consumer reuse and classification of reuse studies, the latter of which are really helpful as circular economy concepts are not always well defined in studies. Therefore, a further discussion of reuse definitions would be welcome.

Recycling

A large majority of the reviewed articles (n38) discusses consumers and the recycling of food packaging. Although the largest stream of such studies discusses recycling behavior (n21), a large portion also considers consumer beliefs about recycled and recyclable material (n12), while a third stream studies the environmental impact of consumer recycling (n6).

The studies discussing consumers’ preferences and beliefs (n12) typically show that consumers prefer recyclable materials [30,31,32,33, 50,51,52] as well as recycled materials [34]. Consumers may even be willing to pay a premium for recyclable material [53], for example, PET bottles in uni-material [54] but also recycled materials [55]. However, Italian consumers did not prefer r-PET bottles, which shows that there are exceptions to the preference for recycled material [56].

A second stream, and large majority of studies, discusses consumers’ recycling behavior (n21). In this stream, we find studies describing packaging attributes that encourage food packaging recycling [15, 57]; obstacles to consumers’ recycling [48, 58]; what retailers can do to make consumers recycle more [38, 59]; consumer willingness to participate in recycling [40, 44, 46, 60,61,62,63,64]; and how consumers conduct their recycling [26, 28, 34, 65]; as well as the gained economic value of consumer recycling [66] and its effects on consumers [67, 68].

A third stream investigates the environmental impact of consumer recycling (n6) [29, 39, 47, 50, 69, 70]. Among these, Marcinkowski and Kowalski [70] investigate what consumers do to prepare packaging for recycling, for example, washing packaging, and whether the washing of used food packaging is economically justified. The authors observe that washing in cold water more often results in a positive result, specifically for packaging where the material value exceeds the cost of washing, which is more often the case for glass rather than plastic.

To summarize, recycling is the most well-studied circular economy strategy. In particular, there are a lot of surveys investigating both consumer preferences for recyclable and recycled material as well as surveys of consumer willingness to participate in recycling. As the studies show, the results of such studies are rather sensitive toward how they are set up. The studies of how consumers treat and prepare packaging in between consumption and recycling shows that such consumer actions do impact the total environmental footprint of recycling, and actual studies of consumer behavior could shed more light on this issue.

Analytical Dimension: Studied Phase of the Circle

In addition to the circular strategies in the “Analytical Dimension: Circular Economy Strategies” section, our analytical dimensions for this review also include consumer behavior during the different phases of the food packaging’s life cycle, as reviewed in the following.

Design Phase

Thirteen articles focus specifically on consumers and circular packaging design, where both food and beverage packaging are discussed. Almost all thirteen articles study plastics, some of which compare plastics with other materials: glass (n4), paper and/or carton (n3), steel (n1), aluminum (n2), foil (n1), metal (n1), edible (n1), and loose fruit (n1).

Some of these articles discuss the design functions and if and how the design of the packaging motivates the consumer to recycle the packaging such as convenience (n3), pricing (n1), materials (n4), or cleanliness (n1). Other articles discuss the consumer impressions or feelings when considering packaging (n2). The article about edible food discusses different flavors of the edible package and consumer preferences [32].

The results related to food package design are about consumers’ preferences for the convenience of handling the package and preferences regarding materials, and that these preferences are important for the industry to consider when designing food packaging. For instance, consumers have difficulties with recycling when there are mixed materials in the packaging [9].

There are mixed findings regarding consumer preference for recyclable plastics. A study by Gill et al. [31] finds that consumers prefer products to be recyclable and contain no plastics, while Klaiman et al. [53] find that, on average, consumer willingness to pay for packaging recyclability is positive for all materials, but especially for plastic. The argument, according to Klaiman et al. [53], is that the consumer would be willing to pay more for plastic packaging recyclability because consumers view plastic as particularly harmful to the environment. De Marchi et al. [56] argue that consumer willingness to pay is higher for materials that have easily recognizable sustainability characteristics at the moment of purchase. Nemat et al. [57] further argue that packaging should be designed to help the consumer.

Purchase and/or Consumption

When coding these articles, 11 articles were coded as discussing consumption and 10 were mostly concerning purchasing. However, there are overlaps between consumption and purchase in several articles (n6): some articles focus on the early stages of consumption or purchasing, e.g., Heidbreder et al. [36], while others focus on multiple stages [40, 61].

As well as these articles, there is a stream of articles concerned with consumption and/or purchases related to the need for marketing communication to influence consumers at the point of purchase [30, 52, 55]. Some articles discuss willingness to pay [56] and some conclude that consumers’ buying behavior is often less environmentally sustainable than intended [33]. Perhaps, more important for the environment is that a number of articles discuss concerns about reducing consumption [61] or the fact that the food packaging problem is not a packaging problem but a food system problem related to the need for increased economic growth rather than social and economic wellbeing [39].

Post-consumption

A large portion of post-consumption studies discuss how consumers return used packaging for either reuse or recycling (n24). Among these studies, one stream focuses on consumers in relation to different recycling/return systems (n13), for example, DRS (n11) and/or recycling (n3) or reuse systems (n1) without financial incentives. DRS for beverage packaging has a long history and these systems were originally designed as reuse systems [25, 27, 67]. With the introduction of metal beverage cans, recycling was introduced to these systems and many were made mandatory by “bottle bills.” Early studies focus on such American bottle bills [28], for example, California [67], Michigan [25, 26], and New York [44].

The authors studying bottle bills raise the issue of consumer inconvenience imposed by these systems [25,26,27, 44, 67]. For example, Porter [25] discusses the cost of storage and return (both time and financial aspects). Indeed, UK consumers find it both inconvenient and difficult to return bottles, while some are unaware that the bottles can be returned or where they can be returned [27]. On the other hand, New York residents are willing to pay to achieve a less littered environment and do not anticipate that returning containers to the store will be a burden [44].

Studies evaluating the implementation of bottle bills typically find that these schemes effectively change post-consumption behavior, from littering to container recycling/return. Evaluating the Michigan “bottle law,” Porter [26] finds that the beverage container roadside litter rate fell by 85%, and that 95% of beverage packaging were returned. When reviewing a range of American “bottle bills” introduced in the 1970s, Moore and Scott [28] find a return rate on average above 90% and that in each of the deposit law states, citizens were overwhelmingly in favor of the law when they have experienced it. Moreover, whether the returned packaging was returned for reuse or recycling did not affect the return rate.

Later DRS studies focus on European and Asian countries and Australia [68]. The studies investigate consumer acceptance of introducing a deposit-refund system for beverage containers in Hong Kong [60], Scotland [63], Catalonia [64], and Hungary [46], respectively, and find that, apart from in Scotland, consumers are generally positive toward such a system. However, Oke et al. [63] note that the results of such studies heavily depend on which information is provided to consumers and how it is provided.

Among the non-financial schemes, Zhang and Wen [61] find that Beijing consumers rely on scavengers to return packaging in a recycling system without financial incentives, largely relying on the informal economy. In Hong Kong, Chung and Poon [60] find that although most citizens were positive to the voluntary recycling scheme, the task of waste separation mainly fell on the women in the household. In a study from Mauritius, an app was developed to locate recycling facilities and facilitate recycling, which was found to help (80%) to initiate recycling activities and the rest to increase those activities [65]. Trying to explain the endurance of a voluntary recycling program in Trinidad, Lawrence et al. [62] find that education together with convenience (e.g., in separation, storage, and access to disposal sites) played a role.

A second stream studies consumer participation in such schemes and compares the environmental impact (n3). The mode of transport used to return containers for reuse and recycling is an important issue at the post-consumption stage. In this context, curbside pick-up may be more environmentally friendly than consumers taking their own transport to the store to return containers [47]. Two studies evaluate how consumers influence the environmental impact of different reuse systems [40, 41]. In their conclusion, Muranko et al. [41] find that consumer engagement with the appropriate use and disposal of reusable products is critical to ensure success in both sequential and exclusive reuse. Similarly, Greenwood et al. [40] find that both a refill and return system can have a reduced overall environmental impact compared to single use providing that the containers are used a minimum number of times.

A third stream focuses on different post-consumption activities (n8). These articles study consumers’ washing of used packaging [70]; sorting and packaging attributes that influence consumers’ sorting [15, 34, 57, 58]; storing and the return of packaging [49, 61]; and the use of return locations [59].

To summarize, we know a lot about DRS as a financial incentive for the return of food packaging, in particular beverage packaging, and it has a good track record both in terms of reducing littering and achieving a high return rate. Consumer post-consumption actions, however, have been shown to impact the systems and their environmental footprint. Despite this fact, there is still only limited knowledge about, for example, storing, washing of used packaging, and the potential repurpose of returnable packaging in the domestic setting, as well as transport to return locations.

Concluding Discussion

The present review has sought to offer an overview of our knowledge of consumer behavior and circular food packaging. By doing so, it has shifted the focus toward the role of consumers for achieving circular food packaging. Since 2018, research focusing on the consumer and circular food packaging has increased and we have found as many as 19 articles discussing consumer behavior and circular food packaging in 2021. Given public debate on the circular economy, single-use food packaging, and plastics, this trend is likely to continue.

The descriptive analysis of methods reveals that researchers have used various methods in the articles. Although surveys were the most commonly used method, followed by mixed methods and quantitative data, there were also some articles using interviews as well as experimental methods. Thus, consumer behavior and circular food packaging have been studied using a broad variety of approaches. Since the literature already contains a number of surveys of consumer preferences and willingness to pay or recycle, other types of methods may offer new opportunities to contribute to the existing literature.

Studying the empirical data used in the reviewed articles, about 70% of the articles are based on empirical data from European countries or North America (most from the USA), which means that most of the literature is concerned with European and US consumer culture. Therefore, considering that single-use food packaging is a global concern, there are plenty of opportunities for future studies to address the circular economy and consumer behavior in this sector in further geographical locations.

In terms of circular economy strategies, the literature contains a number of studies of recycling over a longer time period and in fact also a number of studies of reuse. Among the reuse studies, most focus on a commercial setting and either analyze how to make consumers adopt reusable packaging or how to make consumers return it to producers. There are, for example, several experiments of how to use norms to induce consumers to adopt reusable cups. However, less is known about refill strategies where the consumer takes care of packaging or repurpose strategies whereby, for example, single-use packaging may get a second life.

Only a handful of studies focus on the reduce strategy, and, as noted, this strategy sometimes merges with a reuse strategy. Indeed, for some types of foods, such as beverages, it is difficult to reduce food packaging entirely. Therefore, even waste minimizers may adopt reusable packaging. Compostable packaging as a circular strategy was also rare in our sample, but a number of studies on the subject observe positive consumer perceptions of compostable packaging. However, the literature points out that consumer perceptions of environmentally friendly packaging often diverge from the packaging’s actual environmental impact.

In terms of the purchase/consumption phase, several studies investigate consumer preferences, often in the form of willingness to pay studies. Some of these studies arrive at conflicting conclusions, for example, whether consumers are willing to pay a premium for recycled plastics. Since these studies focus on consumers in different countries, the difference in results may reflect real differences in consumer preferences between, for example, Indonesian and Italian consumers. However, several of these consumer preference studies also acknowledge that this type of research is highly dependent on the information consumers receive before answering the survey.

In addition, as some of these studies also discuss, preferences can be unrepresentative of actual behavior. Some purchases are not deliberate decisions but rather routines. As an example, many consumers prefer no packaging or reusable packaging but few practice these behaviors. Of course, systems that allow consumers to practice what they prefer, such as bulk or reusable systems, are necessary to realize consumer preferences.

We also have extensive knowledge about the post-consumption phase because of a substantial amount of studies of deposit-refund systems. Such studies have repeatedly shown that this is an effective way to organize return of both reuse and recyclable packaging because of the high return rates. However, the literature also notes that consumer behavior affects the environmental footprint of such solutions, for example, individuals taking the car to return packaging. Therefore, curbside collection has been proposed as an environmentally friendly option because of the reduced need for individual transport.

To conclude, the present review highlights that there are ample opportunities for future research to investigate some of the less studied circular economy strategies in this sector, such as the reduce strategy or compostable or edible packaging, preferably in non-European or American settings since resource use and single-use food packaging constitutes a global challenge.