Role: Consultant – Project Manager

Responsibilities: UX research, strategic planning, client communication, project operations, stakeholder engagement, budgeting and reporting, field research

Brief Summary: Reduced the use of single-use plastic bags in wet markets across 3 major Cambodian cities by encouraging vendors to distribute less bags. Current practice was to place different products in different bags; for example, carrots, bananas and peppers were separated into 3 plastic bags.

Challenge

How might we reduce single-use plastic waste in Cambodia’s major cities?

Background

Cambodia’s capital city of Phnom Penh discards 3 – 3.5 million plastic bags per day, an extraordinary amount of waste for a comparatively small population. This has led to overflowing landfills, urban flooding, contaminated water and polluted streets. How can we create a campaign that leads to less plastic waste in Cambodia’s major cities?

Approach and Methods

Research involved conducting user and stakeholder interviews, focus groups with different age and social segments, and observational studies. Through quantitative research, we identified wet markets as the main site of plastic distribution and waste. We then brought our research into the wet markets to speak with vendors and customers and observe their behaviours. (Research can be found at the ACRA Website)

Key Findings

• No matter which way you look at it, plastic is probably the most ubiquitous, highly versatile, cost-effective product invented in the 20th century. There is no reasonable comparison as of yet.

• Awareness is high, but does not translate into improved behaviour. Groups with the highest awareness were also the most likely to litter.

• Wet markets have the highest distribution of plastic bags. Overwhelming majority of vendors and shoppers in the market are women.

• It’s someone else’s problem. Plastic bag behaviour is a blame game in which retailers feel pressured to give more bags to consumers (considered good customer service) and consumers feel they are given a bag before they have time to refuse. No one wants to lose face.

Campaign Focus

• Target Market: Adult women shoppers and vendors in wet markets in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and Sihanoukville.

• Strategy: Lessen the tension of “loss of face” by creating a fun and community-oriented shopping experience. Allow vendors to combine produce in one bag (rather than the current practice of bagging different produce items separately).

• Ouput: Experiential marketing campaigns, outdoor advertising, TVC campaign

Impact

The project succeeded in less plastic usage by participating vendors during the monitoring phase, as reported below. Consumers overwhelmingly reacted positively to receiving less plastic bags, and less than 1 in 10 objected to combining products in one bag. The next step in the project is researching how to spread the combine-in-one behaviour beyond the wet market space.

Direct:

• 1 million women

• 200,000 school children

• 150.000 University students

• 12,000 vendors/SMEs in markets

• 6,000 street stalls

Indirect:

• a 50% decrease in plastic bag selling in the target areas

• a 60% decrease in the of the amount of plastic waste dumped in landfills in the 3 major Cambodian cities

• an 80% reduction in the amount of plastic bags improperly disposed