Humanistic environmental governance: a novel paradigm for addressing plastic reduction

Introduction/background: Single-use plastic (SUP) products, being considered harmful to the environment and public health, are to be banned in the EU by 2021. These bans are required to be put in place by all member states. For other SUP items, member states will have to limit their use through a national reduction in consumption, either ensuring they cannot be provided free of charge, or by making alternative products available. Aim of the paper: The aim of the paper is to present a grass-root action QUIT PLASTIC (http://quitplastic.eu/) initiated by a group of Polish scientists, as an immediate reaction to SUP elimination. Materials and methods: In April-October 2019, a carefully designed platform on SUP usage as offered as an anonymous survey to be filled in by canteen/take-away style restaurant visitors, the focus being on university students in the city of Kraków (N = 80). In all, a full range of SUP was offered, with the highest representation of take-away-containers, bottles and cutlery (consecutively in 89,23%, 87,50% 60% of the locals). Representation of various SUP items was significantly dependent on the size of university. Results and conclusions: In results of the research the authors discovered that none of the surveyed canteens/gastronomes displayed information about SUP environmental and health risk, some offered waste selection containers (16/80). This was more often (9/16) evident in smaller universities. A full picture of how to improve implementing and fostering the sharing of responsibility for the environment by means of humanistic approach are discussed in the paper. There are also suggested some recommendations.