Page - 161 - in Critical Issues in Science, Technology and Society Studies - Conference Proceedings of the 17th STS Conference Graz 2018

Figure 1: Consumer perception of plastic fruit packaging functions (n=999) Furthermore, the environmental attitude and attitude towards plastic fruit packaging of the 999 respondents was analysed using a descriptive analysis. The mean value, standard deviation as well as the minimum and maximum value of the two attitude scales were calculated. The mean value of the environmental attitude was 4.05 with a standard deviation of 0.45649. The maximum value was 5.00, while the minimum value was 1.53. Thus, the majority of respondents have a positive environmental attitude in average. Compared with NEP values of comparable studies (Erdogan 2009; Thomson 2013; Weber 2011), the participants of this study scored higher values on average. In addition, the mean value of the attitude towards plastic fruit packaging was 4.30 with a standard deviation of 0.40569, while the maximum value was 5.00 and the minimum value was 2.20. Hence, the majority of respondents have a positive attitude regarding the avoidance of plastic fruit packaging. Their attitude towards the avoidance of plastic fruit packaging is even higher than their environmental attitude. Besides that, the connotative meaning of plastics and bioplastics for fruit packaging was analysed with a semantic differential as shown in figure 2. Overall plastic as packaging material is seen more negative than bioplastics. For the majority of respondents, for example, bioplastics tends to be seen as attractive, natural and ecological. In contrast, plastics is seen comparatively unattractive, synthetic and not ecological. 161