Breaking the plastic habit: Unveiling strategies for reducing single-use plastic utensil usage on online food delivery platforms

As consumers’ use of online food delivery (OFD) platforms increases, concerns have arisen about customers’ usage of single-use plastic utensils. Major OFD platforms in the U.S. provide pre-selected boxes (default options) on their applications, but visual cues, loss aversion effects, and negativity bias are not applied. Therefore, this study investigates whether consumers try to reduce their usage of single-use plastic utensils when ordering food using OFD platforms. Study 1 identified the use of ‘single-use plastic utensils are not required (default options),’ and image signals (visual cues) have the greatest effects. Furthermore, Study 2 showed the loss aversion effect and negativity bias had the greatest effects on reducing consumers’ single-use plastic utensil usage. This study contributes to the growing literature in the foodservice industry on how consumers can most effectively reduce their usage of single-use plastic utensils. Our findings provide new directions for practitioners to reduce single-use plastic utensil usage.