Questioning the disposability of plastic packaging: Consumer challenges to fresh food packaging market devices and their afterlives

Disposable plastic packaging has been conceptualised as a market device that has effects on the functioning of economic markets. It is particularly influential in food retail environments but also has significant environmental consequences. Consumers are aware of these issues, and this paper addresses their questions and objections to the packaging market device for fresh food. Drawing on empirical insights from 28 interviews and 25 completed research diaries conducted as part of the ‘Reducing plastic packaging and food waste through product innovation simulation’ project, these contestations are explored in a number of ways. Firstly, it explores how such objections become possible and the role of unintended consequences of marketing arrangements. Secondly, conflicting ontologies of freshness are examined, as they also create the potential for objections. Thirdly, the paper engages with the role of responsibility, looking at how municipal recycling systems and packaging design enable contestations. Exploring these contestations contributes to an understanding of how we can address non-market effects of market devices, once they have left the physical spaces associated with market activity and moved into other spheres of activity. It also holds several contributions for debates concerning consumer engagement and acceptance of plastic packaging and plastics policy discourses more broadly.