Namba Mira, Kaneda Yudai, Tanimoto Tetsuya, Takebayashi Masaki
Medicine, Keio University, Tokyo, JPN.
Medicine, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, JPN.
Cureus. 2024 May 12;16(5):e60169. doi: 10.7759/cureus.60169. eCollection 2024 May.
Plastic pollution is increasingly becoming a threatening problem worldwide, with highlighted health risks associated with plastic waste incineration. Among the immediate measures to address this problem, proper recycling of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles is a pertinent strategy. Considering the urgent need for administrative-led reforms, we assessed the separation rates of PET bottle caps and labels by 125 administrative staff in a government office of a prefectural in Japan during a four-day period; only 59.3% (48/81) of the pet bottles had both caps and labels removed and properly separated to each trash can. One potential solution for the low separation rate is the use of nudges, which are effective methods for promoting behaviors such as healthy actions. Since both health and environmentally conscious behaviors involve choices across different time points, leveraging insights from nudges developed in the field of health behavior to environmental behaviors is considered crucial, even from a health promotion perspective.
塑料污染正日益成为全球范围内一个具有威胁性的问题，塑料垃圾焚烧带来的健康风险备受关注。在解决这一问题的直接措施中，对聚对苯二甲酸乙二酯（PET）瓶进行适当回收是一项相关策略。考虑到行政主导改革的迫切需求，我们在四天时间里对日本一个县的政府办公室的125名行政人员对PET瓶盖和标签的分类率进行了评估；只有59.3%（48/81）的PET瓶的瓶盖和标签被移除并正确分类到各个垃圾桶中。分类率低的一个潜在解决方案是使用助推，助推是促进诸如健康行为等行为的有效方法。由于健康和环保意识行为都涉及在不同时间点的选择，因此，即使从健康促进的角度来看，利用健康行为领域开发的助推见解来应用于环境行为也被认为至关重要。
