Skip the Plastic: Corpus Christi Plastic Bag Fee Proposal

Diana Caragan Jacquelyn Hatch Laura Cervantes Mindy Wiriya Sarika

MKTG 3330 Dr. Monica Hernandez March 20th, 2013

I. Introduction Corpus Christi City Officials are finding different ways to minimize the cost of city cleanup and reduce littering problems in the city. One of the biggest littering issues that the city of Corpus Christi is dealing with is the vast amount of plastic bags floating around the city. A recent city ordinance proposal of limiting the use of plastic bags is waiting for its approval. The idea of the proposal is to eliminate the usage of plastic bags by requiring retailer stores such as Wal-Mart, H-E-B, and Stripes to charge a fee per bag usage. This proposal is highly supported by Corpus Christi Mayor Nelda Martinez who believes that plastic bags are an epidemic of massive proportions and a public eyesore. According to the city staff, the proposal will act as a deterrent to reduce massive volume of plastic bags caught in gutters and trees, also floating around the beach and bay area. It will also help encourage everyone in the city to start using reusable bags and raise awareness of maintaining the cleanliness of the city. II. Method The materials used in this study were a self-administered survey and Corpus Christi community members as the respondents. The survey was created by the team with a mix of attitude rating questions and basic inquiries of the respondents recycling habits (see Figure A). The first part of the survey had the respondents fill out their gender, age, and number of people living in their household. Choices were given for age groups and household size. For example the choices for age were: 18 and under, 19-24, 25-34, 35-44, and 45 years or older. For household size the choices were lives alone, 2-4 people, 4-6 people, and 7 or more (see Figure B). This was done to allow for easier grouping and organizing of the data during analysis. The survey itself was brief- five questions, including a comment section at the bottom for the respondents to give their thoughts and feelings on the subject. Rating questions used scales of 5.

The scales were used to rate the respondents likeliness of paying for plastic bags at the store and how important recycling was to them. The respondents were taken from a sample population of 20 Corpus Christi residents. Distribution of the survey was done by the four members of the team, each distributing to five respondents. Respondents were selected by random as well as to people we know. This was to get a variety of people from different majors and backgrounds in order to get the best sample of the entire population. After administering the surveys, the results were taken and then analyzed. For presentation of the results charts and tables were created to represent the various answers to the questions. More in-depth analyzation was done when considering the different segments, whether there is a correlation between similar answers and age group or certain answers to household size. III. Findings In relation with the survey results, we were able to summarize the findings as follow: 60% of the respondents agree with the proposal (see Chart 1). Most respondents shop for groceries less than 6 times per month (see Chart 3). 40% of the respondents are currently using reusable bags (see Chart 1). Based on the Likert-scale questionnaire, recycling is deemed generally important to the respondents (see Chart 2). Every household shop for groceries multiple times a month. 30% of the respondents shop for groceries more than 6 times a month. However, most respondents do not care much for paying 5 cents per plastic bag used (see Chart 2).

IV. Discussion According to the results from the questionnaires that were filled out by different individuals from the community many of them feel that implementing a program that would contribute to cleaning up Corpus Christi by charging 5 cents per plastic bag used when shopping is a positive benefit. From the results from the age group 19-24, the importance of recycling fluctuated from 2 being semi-important to 5 very important and out of the 2 that put semiimportant they were the only two of the nine surveys in this group to not agree with the proposal. What was deemed to be interesting of this age group was that many of them agreed with the proposal and as well found recycling to be important but 6 of the 9 survey respondents did not use reusable bags. 6 out of the 9 respondents in this age group left comments with five of them being positive such as, I think the proposal is good, I like the idea, it should promote recycling, and About time!!!. One comment that was left out of these six said, I agree that something needs to be done about the litter from plastic bags, I see them everywhere but the five cent fee isnt enough to make me personally go out of my way to bring my own bags. In the age group of 25-34 recycling was rated to be semi-important to very important with majority in the very important category. Though majority ruled in this category that recycling was very important, only half of the respondents agreed with the proposal and majority as well were using reusable bags. Among the six surveys 5 respondents left comments and only one of them claimed the proposal to be ridiculous while others left comments such as, it would save a $1,000 a day in littering fees, This is a good proposal to limit plastic bags and this way help the environment, and We should have started this decades ago. In the age group 35-44 we had two respondents and both respondents deemed recycling to be important and both do not use reusable bags which is surprising since to them it is important.

They both agree with the proposal but one of the respondents did not feel likely to pay 5 cents for the plastic bags if the proposal was implemented. Only one of the respondents left a comment which stated, I think insisting that people bring their own bags to every retail environment is acceptable. The expectation that we get a bag to carry purchased items is an unusable idea. In the age group of 45 years or older we had three respondents and this age group felt recycling to them was moderately important to important. This age group doesnt believe in the proposal and it coincides with their answer on the importance of recycling to them which was just up to important. This was the only age group that did not deem recycling to be very important which also coincides with their answer of being unlikely and very unlikely to pay the proposed five cents for bags. It can be seen that no matter what age the individual is, the importance of recycling is just up to the consumers and it fluctuates. Yet, there seems to be many individuals according to the results that feel that recycling is very important but they do not use the reusable bags that are already available to them at a wide variety of locations. V. Appendix Ultimately, the data collected could benefit the Surf Rider Foundation, who initiated the proposal in the first place. The foundation has a Texas Coastal Bend Chapter located in Corpus Christi and has created the Skip the Plastic campaign (est. March 2011) to bring awareness to plastic bags littering and uses. We believe that the research we conducted could provide great insights on the consumer attitudes regarding the proposal to charge for plastic bags. Surf Rider Foundation Coastal Bend Chapter contact: Neil McQueen, svtranquilo@hotmail.com. More information on the Chapters website: http://www.coastalbend.surfrider.org.

Figure A: Survey Sample

Figure B: Demographics
Age
4-6 people 20% 19-24 45%

Household Size

35-44 10%

45+ 15%

1 person 20% 2-4 people 60%

25-34 30%

Gender Distribution

Male 25% Female 75%

Chart 1: Survey results to questions 3 and 5

14 Number of Respondents 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Are you currently Do you agree with the using reusable bags? proposal? 8 12 12 8 YES NO

Chart 2: Survey results to questions 1 and 4

8 7 Number of Respondents 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0
1 unlikely 2 3 4 5 likely

7 6 5 4 3 2 3 4 6 How likely are you going to pay 5 cents per plastic bag? How important is recycling to you?

Chart 3: Survey results to question 3

9 8 Number of Respondents 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1-3 times/ month 4-6 times/ month 6+ times/ month How often do you shop for groceries?