Research on Impact of plastic food containers on human health: Need for an alternative approach for packaging

Research Question

What is the impact of plastic food containers on human health?

Research Design and Method

In order to investigate the impact of plastic food containers on human health, three different approaches were used i.e. semi-structured interviews, social media and observations. First research method for the study was to perform using semi-structured interviews, in which the researcher performs an interview using predetermined questions and poses additional questions where appropriate for more detail and clarity (Secor, 2010). Semi-structured interviews have been chosen because they facilitate an in-depth conversation, are a good way of creating truthful viewpoints for the participants and although each interview is somewhat similar, semi-structured interviews permit some differentiation (Vaughn & Turner, 2016). The interviews were administered with a regular buyer utilizing plastic food packaging, plastic free store holder, a retailer manager and the co-founder of a sustainable food retail company. The identities of the interviewees were placed in secret to guarantee confidentiality. The limitations, however, involve the necessity for the researcher to familiarize himself with the process of data collection in order to produce successful research (Irvine, Drew & Sainsbury, 2013) and that interviews are mostly reflective of the opinions of a person or institution and may therefore be hard to generalize. Nevertheless, this is not a real concern because qualitative research aims to investigate rather than reflect a subject of study.

Second research method was based on various posts mentioned on the social media i.e. Instagram and Facebook, it was visible that food packaging has high societal value because it protect food but there are also post that highlights the shortcomings of using plastic food packaging in terms of deteriorating human health. For this study, total 25 posts were examined on Instagram and Facebook combine from all around the world. There were 30% of the posts’ content that addressed the benefits of using plastic food packaging, 55% of the posts’ content were based on harmful impact of plastic on human lives and 20% of the posts’ content generally talked about plastic food packaging. Therefore, from majority of the content available on the selected posts, it was clearly identifiable that plastic food packaging have very dangerous implications on the lives of mankind.

Third and the last research method was of observation which includes researcher’ own personal experience (Becker et al., 2002). In this study, researcher viewed 20 posts related to the research topic on the social media and identified that most of the posts were posted by females and most of them were from urban areas of the developed countries. These females were between 20 to 35 years age group that are more conscious about their health.

These all three research methods were used to collect the relevant data for the study. Based on these research methods, researcher highlighted the concerns and impact of plastic food packaging on human lives.

References

Becker, H., Berger, P., Luckmann, T., Burawoy, M., Gans, H., Gerson, K., Glaser, B., Strauss, A., Horowitz, R., Inciardi, J. and Pottieger, A. (2002). Observation and interviewing: Options and choices in qualitative research. Qualitative research in action, 6, 200-224.

Irvine, A., Drew, P., & Sainsbury, R. (2013). ‘Am I not answering your questions properly?’Clarification, adequacy and responsiveness in semi-structured telephone and face-to-face interviews. Qualitative Research, 13(1), 87-106.

Secor, A. (2010). Social surveys, interviews, and focus groups. Research methods in Geography. Eds. Gomez, B. and J. Jones, 3, 194-205.

Vaughn, P., & Turner, C. (2016). Decoding via coding: Analyzing qualitative text data through thematic coding and survey methodologies. Journal of Library Administration, 56(1), 41-51.