Our new project „Verbraucherreaktionen bei Plastik und dessen Vermeidungsmöglichkeiten am Point of Sale“ (VerPlaPoS) has been started in October 2017 and will be funded for three years by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). It is a collaborative research project of the city of Straubing, the University of Applied Science Weihenstephan-Triesdorf, the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging, the University of Stuttgart, the University of Marburg, and the Ludwig Stocker Hofpfisterei GmbH. The goal of the project is the development of concrete recommendations for the reduction of plastic use.

The starting point is the consumer, which is forced to use products with plastic. It is almost impossible to shop without the use of plastics, however, consumer can be influenced to choose products with reduced use of plastics. The abondonment of plastic bags is just one example.

The project VerPlaPos will analyze the potential of plastic reduction at the point of sale. To this end, we will make use of examples from food and textiles. We will investigate mitigation strategies, in particular

• Analyses of consumer behavior during the shopping of products with plastics
• Development of strategies to reduce the use of plastics in the supply chains
• Assessment and evaluation of plastic alternatives

The Bioinformatics department of the University of Marburg is responsible for the development of the IT infrastructure, data analyses, as well as for the development of mobile apps for the consumers.

Funding
The work is supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).