Cheese Stick Packaging: Consumer Behavior and Recycling Effectiveness

Sustainability considerations increasingly influence food packaging design, with recyclability serving as a prominent, consumer-facing indicator of environmental responsibility. However, recyclable design alone does not ensure correct consumer disposal, particularly for materials requiring specialized recycling pathways. This study examined consumer disposal behavior for used Colby-Jack cheese stick packaging containing non-recyclable food-contact components and secondary packaging that was non-recyclable, recyclable, or conditionally recyclable, as indicated by the How2Recycle (H2R) labeling system for consumer packaged goods commonly used in the US and Canada. Using a controlled, in-person kitchen clean-up simulation, 105 adult participants disposed of three commercially representative packaging formats differing in material type (flexible plastic films and corrugated fiberboard) and recyclability. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: no recycling label, H2R label only, or H2R label plus brief educational instruction on label interpretation. Widely recyclable corrugated fiberboard trays were placed into the recycling bin significantly more often than all other packaging components ( p < 0.0001), and the presence of an H2R label increased consumer recycling of this material relative to NoLabel ( p = 0.0401), while additional education did not further improve outcomes. In contrast, attempts at consumer recycling store drop-off recyclable flexible plastic packaging increased significantly only when education accompanied labeling ( p = 0.0038). Non-recyclable food-contact wrappers showed uniformly low recycling rates across all conditions. Wishcycling occurred among 18.9% of participants and was more frequent in the YesLabel group ( p = 0.0433). These findings indicate that material familiarity strongly influences correct recycling behavior and that labeling alone may be insufficient for less familiar recyclable materials.