Question

survey on usage of plastic

Answer 1

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Plastic bags and factors responsible for increasing
trend of their usage
Of the 230 respondents, the largest proportion of them
(176, 76.52%) used plastic bags in high frequency as
compared to other plastic products. This was followed by
the usage of plastic bottles (92, 40%), plastic buckets,
barrels and baskets (44, 19.13%) and plastic shoes (26,
11.30%) (Table 2). These results revealed that majority of
the respondents in each category use plastic bags in their
daily life. The results also indicated that usage of plastic
bags is high among residents of Jimma City, and the
residents noticed the increasing trend of usage of plastic
bags from time to time. This observation is consistent
with the report of Ramaswamy and Sharma (2011) from
Gondar City of Ethiopia that states increasing trends of
usage of plastic bags among Gondar City residents. All
these facts suggest that plastic bags are also widely
utilized products in other big cities of the country.
The survey results indicated that regardless of sex,
educational level, age group and occupation, majority of
the city residents widely used plastic bags in their daily
life activities. Some of the main reasons attributed to the
widespread usage were low price (159, 69.13%), easy
availability (152, 66.08%) and light weight (95, 41.30%)
(Table 3). These findings are consistent with other
reports describing that light-weight, cheap price, excellent
fitness for use and resource efficiency as main reasons
for widespread utilization of plastic bags by billions of
customers throughout the world (Verghese et al., 2006).
Though lack of alternative materials (62, 26.95%) and
durability (32, 13.91%) were mentioned as additional
contributing factors for excessive utilization of plastic
bags in the city, their contribution was found to be less
important as compared to the above mentioned reasons
(Table 3). During the course of our survey, we also
observed many shopkeepers and retailers distributing
plastic bags free of charge to their customers for carrying
other sold items. This suggests that cheapness and free
distribution of these materials by retailers or supermarket
owners are believed to be the main reasons for the
widespread usage and problems of plastic. This
argument is consistent with the results of similar surveys
in other big cities of the world (Environment Victoria,
2006; Ayalona, 2009