IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/recore/v84y2014icp15-23.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Identifying motivations and barriers to minimising household food waste

Author

Listed:
  • Graham-Rowe, Ella
  • Jessop, Donna C.
  • Sparks, Paul

Abstract

The amount of food discarded by UK households is substantial and, to a large extent, avoidable. Furthermore, such food waste has serious environmental consequences. If household food waste reduction initiatives are to be successful they will need to be informed by people's motivations and barriers to minimising household food waste. This paper reports a qualitative study of the thoughts, feelings and experiences of 15 UK household food purchasers, based on semi-structured interviews. Two core categories of motives to minimise household food waste were identified: (1) waste concerns and (2) doing the ‘right’ thing. A third core category illustrated the importance of food management skills in empowering people to keep household food waste to a minimum. Four core categories of barriers to minimising food waste were also identified: (1) a ‘good’ provider identity; (2) minimising inconvenience; (3) lack of priority; and (4) exemption from responsibility. The wish to avoid experiencing negative emotions (such as guilt, frustration, annoyance, embarrassment or regret) underpinned both the motivations and the barriers to minimising food waste. Findings thus reveal potentially conflicting personal goals which may hinder existing food waste reduction attempts.

Suggested Citation

  • Graham-Rowe, Ella & Jessop, Donna C. & Sparks, Paul, 2014. "Identifying motivations and barriers to minimising household food waste," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 15-23.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:recore:v:84:y:2014:i:c:p:15-23
    DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2013.12.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344913002711
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.resconrec.2013.12.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Quested, T.E. & Marsh, E. & Stunell, D. & Parry, A.D., 2013. "Spaghetti soup: The complex world of food waste behaviours," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 43-51.
    2. Turrentine, Thomas S. & Kurani, Kenneth S., 2007. "Car buyers and fuel economy?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 1213-1223, February.
    3. Mary Griffin & Jeffery Sobal & Thomas Lyson, 2009. "An analysis of a community food waste stream," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 26(1), pages 67-81, March.
    4. repec:cdl:itsdav:qt56x845v4 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Roberto Ruggieri & Giuliana Vinci & Marco Ruggeri & Henry Sardaryan, 2020. "Food losses and food waste: The Industry 4.0 opportunity for the sustainability challenge," RIVISTA DI STUDI SULLA SOSTENIBILITA', FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 0(1), pages 159-177.
    2. Graham-Rowe, Ella & Jessop, Donna C. & Sparks, Paul, 2015. "Predicting household food waste reduction using an extended theory of planned behaviour," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 194-202.
    3. repec:cdl:uctcwp:qt15f9495j is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Jihad Mohammad & Farzana Quoquab, 2024. "The role of mindfulness and frugality in mitigating food waste and enhancing social well-being," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 26(12), pages 31601-31626, December.
    5. repec:cdl:itsdav:qt6r64v86z is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Zahra Fozouni Ardekani & Seyed Mohammad Javad Sobhani & Marcelo Werneck Barbosa & Ehsan Amiri-Ardekani & Samaneh Dehghani & Najmeh Sasani & Hans De Steur, 2024. "Determinants of household food waste behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran: an integrated model," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 26(10), pages 26205-26235, October.
    7. Larson, Paul D. & Viáfara, Jairo & Parsons, Robert V. & Elias, Arne, 2014. "Consumer attitudes about electric cars: Pricing analysis and policy implications," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 299-314.
    8. Xie, Fei & Lin, Zhenhong, 2017. "Market-driven automotive industry compliance with fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards: Analysis based on consumer choice," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 299-311.
    9. Ozaki, Ritsuko & Sevastyanova, Katerina, 2011. "Going hybrid: An analysis of consumer purchase motivations," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 2217-2227, May.
    10. Fatoumata Jarjusey & Norshamliza Chamhuri, 2017. "Consumers' Awareness and Knowledge about Food Waste in Selangor,Malaysia," International Journal of Business and Economic Affairs (IJBEA), Sana N. Maswadeh, vol. 2(2), pages 91-97.
    11. Johnson, Lisa K. & Dunning, Rebecca D. & Gunter, Chris C. & Dara Bloom, J. & Boyette, Michael D. & Creamer, Nancy G., 2018. "Field measurement in vegetable crops indicates need for reevaluation of on-farm food loss estimates in North America," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 136-142.
    12. Kevin D Hall & Juen Guo & Michael Dore & Carson C Chow, 2009. "The Progressive Increase of Food Waste in America and Its Environmental Impact," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(11), pages 1-6, November.
    13. repec:cdl:itsdav:qt9mw1t4w3 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. McConnell, Virginia, 2013. "The New CAFE Standards: Are They Enough on Their Own?," RFF Working Paper Series dp-13-14, Resources for the Future.
    15. Lingfei Wang & Yuqin Yang & Guoyan Wang, 2022. "The Clean Your Plate Campaign: Resisting Table Food Waste in an Unstable World," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-17, April.
    16. Carroll, James & Denny, Eleanor & Lyons, Ronan C. & Petrov, Ivan, 2024. "Better energy cost information changes household property investment decisions: Evidence from a nationwide experiment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    17. Oren Bar-Gill & Cass R. Sunstein, 2025. "Consumer misperceptions and product differentiation," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 70(1), pages 65-87, February.
    18. repec:cdl:itsdav:qt4kv151dp is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Sprei, Frances & Karlsson, Sten, 2013. "Energy efficiency versus gains in consumer amenities—An example from new cars sold in Sweden," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 490-499.
    20. Huang, Shisheng & Safiullah, Hameed & Xiao, Jingjie & Hodge, Bri-Mathias S. & Hoffman, Ray & Soller, Joan & Jones, Doug & Dininger, Dennis & Tyner, Wallace E. & Liu, Andrew & Pekny, Joseph F., 2012. "The effects of electric vehicles on residential households in the city of Indianapolis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 442-455.
    21. Perrels, Adriaan & Tuovinen, Tarja, 2012. "The Effectiveness of Differentiation of the Finnish Car Purchase Tax according to Carbon Dioxide Emission Performance," Research Reports 168, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    22. Runst, Petrik & Bettendorf, Axel, 2017. "Energieeffizienz in Klein- und Kleinstunternehmen des Handwerks," Göttinger Beiträge zur Handwerksforschung 16, Volkswirtschaftliches Institut für Mittelstand und Handwerk an der Universität Göttingen (ifh).
    23. Green, Erin H. & Skerlos, Steven J. & Winebrake, James J., 2014. "Increasing electric vehicle policy efficiency and effectiveness by reducing mainstream market bias," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 562-566.
    24. Youyi Bi & Yunjian Qiu & Zhenghui Sha & Mingxian Wang & Yan Fu & Noshir Contractor & Wei Chen, 2021. "Modeling Multi-Year Customers’ Considerations and Choices in China’s Auto Market Using Two-Stage Bipartite Network Analysis," Networks and Spatial Economics, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 365-385, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:recore:v:84:y:2014:i:c:p:15-23. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kai Meng (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/resources-conservation-and-recycling .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.