Signs of Use Present a Barrier to Reusable Packaging Systems for Takeaway Food

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This article doesn’t look ready for publication. The reason is poor writing quality. The configuration of this article needs improvements. Some comments are as below.

[1] Take a look at section 1.2. Where is section 1.1?

[2] What is the contribution of this article? Section 2 Research Objectives can’t be a separate section. It could be included in introduction.

[3] Add the structure of this article in introduction.

[4] Re-configurate Section 3 and Section 4. I think they could be included in one section.

[5] What are the differences of Section 5 General Discussion, Section 3.2 and Section 4.3? I don’t think current structure of this article look good. Can these discussions be included together?

[6] Usually figures can’t be shown in Conclusion. Current conclusion looks poor.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The current manuscript entitled “How Signs of Use Affect People’s Perceptions of Reusable Packaging for Takeaway Food” by Collis et al. deals with evaluations of a takeaway food service changed depending on the appearance of a reusable container. After a careful reading, I found this manuscript of average quality. It needs further improvements in terms of scientific writing, structural changes, and language editing. I suggest a major revision. My specific comments are:

1.      The title of the manuscript seems to be questioned. I suggest authors write it in such as way that it delivers the solution and not the problem.

2.      Add a problem statement at beginning of the abstract for the risk of non-reusable packaging. The Abstract lacks a brief study design and sampling protocol. Also, the last sentence should indicate the overall outcome of the study in terms of its contribution to current knowledge and sustainability.

3.      Avoid the keywords which already appeared in the title.

4.      I think the reference style in the text and list is not as per the MDPI format. Consider changing it in the revision.

5.      The authors discussed important aspects of contaminant interaction in section 1.2. However, it will be better to add a figure in this section in order to understand the directional flow of contaminants in different environmental compartments including human beings.

6.      What is the major chemical compositional difference between non-reusable and reusable containers and what affects their biodegradability? Please add 2-3 lines about it.

7.      Section 2: Reference (Gallego-Schmid et al., 2019) is not necessary here.

8.      Questionnaire Information under section 4.2 should be converted to a table for easy understanding. Same for the appendix information and other similar parts.

9.      Please add, a, b, c, … etc. in all figures and add valid explanations for each figure under their captions.

10.   What is general discussion? Consider changing it to the discussion.

Please consider proofreading your manuscript for typo and grammatical errors.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

1Dear authors, I appreciate your valuable works. I think it requires further revision as I mentioned below:

T.   The research background could be updated and improved by new references.

2.       Since you have applied MANOVA, the hypothesis of the research needs to be specified and discussed.

3.       The discussion needs to be improved by different more diverse differences.

4.       More descriptive statistics of the findings should be provided.

5.       Conclusion should place more emphasis on your findings than the findings of other research.

6.       The recommendations need to take into account the motives of food suppliers as well as single-use plastics’ producers who may be motivated to use this option for its ease of applications and their more benefits.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

 The present research tested how takeaway food service changed depending on the appearance of a reusable bowl for take-away food. To ensure commercial relevance, a corporate partner who operates a reusable packaging system for takeaway food and drink worked alongside the research team.

The manuscript presents some interesting background, and the approach is interesting, but the manuscript have some lacks and must be developed before it can be published.

·        The first statement in the Introduction is false (” Plastic from packaging is one of the biggest contributors of waste, contributing approximately 61% of all of the waste generated in Europe (Geyer et al., 2017)”. The authors should control this figure and check with other sources.

·        Line 6 in Introduction: Which market does the 0.2% refers to, is it UK, Europé or the World?

·        Line 11 in Introduction:  (”,,,,be used at least 60 times….”). This statement should have better references than ”......in preparation” and it the assumptions and systems border to this statement should be explained to the reader.

·        The manuscript deals with reusable plastic bowls for take-away food, but in the background discussion and conclusions there is a a focus on packaging in general.  He manuscript should be more clear to show when the text is about reusable bowls and when it is on other kind of reusable packages.

·        The Research Objectives are rather poor expressed. The authors write ”reusable packaging”, which is a very broad concept, but the study is restricted to plastic bowls for take-away food. It is the same in the General Discussion. The study only shows the result for bowls, and not reusable containers in general. For example, there have been systems with reusable glass bottles, and to some extent also PET bottles. These are also other kinds of ”reusable containers” which are not included in the scope of the study.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The second version looks better but it is still not ready for publishing. Some comments are as below.

[1] The title doesn’t look good.

[2] In Abstract, I think the reason why this paper conducted two studies should be clear. Is there any relationship between the two studies? Some more texts about this reason are needed in this paper.

[3] In Keywords, delete “Circular Economy” because this paper didn’t discuss “Circular Economy” at all.

[4] In Section1.1 “So why are people largely unwilling to reuse containers that show signs of wear [6]?”, does the research question come from others’ study?

[5] In Page 2 “According to Baxter et al [8]”, avoid such sentences. It could be a citation after “territory”.

[6] In Page 4 Section 2.1.1 “An a-priori power analysis (using G*Power; [18]) suggested…”, the same comment as in Comment [5].

[7] In Page 8, do not use a full sentence for the title of Section 3.3.1.

[8] In Page 10, the title for Section 3.3.3 doesn’t look good.

[9] In Page 13, Section 4.2 Limitation and further research could be included in Section 5 Conclusion as the last paragraph.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 comments

We would like to Reviewer 1 for their additional comments and suggestions. Our response to each of the specific comments are outlined below.

Reviewer 1 comments:

The second version looks better but it is still not ready for publishing. Some comments are as below.

[1] The title doesn’t look good.

We revised the title of our manuscript based on feedback from the first round of reviewer comments which suggested that our initial title posed a question, rather than providing an indication of the findings of our research. However, we agree that the title could be streamlined and so we have revised our title to read; “Signs of Use Present a Barrier to reusable packaging systems for Takeaway Food".

[2] In Abstract, I think the reason why this paper conducted two studies should be clear. Is there any relationship between the two studies? Some more texts about this reason are needed in this paper.

Thank you for this suggestion. To address your comment, we explain how Study 2 builds upon the findings of Study 1 on pages 7-8 of the revised manuscript. Specifically we state:

“Study 2 sought to build on the findings from Study 1 through in-person interviews, which allowed participants to physically evaluate the bowl (as they would in real life), rather than seeing and evaluating the bowls via digital images and provided the opportunity to understand the rationale behind participants’ evaluations of the bowls and restaurant.”

We have also revised the abstract to state that:

“Two studies were conducted to (i) investigate the effect that signs of use have on people’s perceptions of reusable packaging systems using quantitative methods (Study 1), and (ii) understand the rationale underpinning these evaluations using qualitative methods (Study 2)”

[3] In Keywords, delete “Circular Economy” because this paper didn’t discuss “Circular Economy” at all. 

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. A “Circular Economy” is the overarching model of consumption that reusable packaging seeks to support (i.e., by keeping containers in circulation for as long as possible before being recycled). Thus, rather than delete the term “Circular Economy” from our key words, we have edited the introduction of our manuscript to show how our research on reusable packaging supports a global initiative to move towards a more circular economy (please see the highlighted edits on pages 1 and 2 of the revised manuscript).

[4] In Section 1.1 “So why are people largely unwilling to reuse containers that show signs of wear [6]?”, does the research question come from others’ study?

Yes, this question was the focus of the work conducted by Baird, Meade and Webb (2022). The current study seeks to build on this work by exploring how signs of use affect the desirability and thus success of reusable packaging systems using a real-world product that has signs of use directly from in-field use.

[5] In Page 2 “According to Baxter et al [8]”, avoid such sentences. It could be a citation after “territory”.

Thank you for this suggestion. We have moved the reference to the end of the sentence.

[6] In Page 4 Section 2.1.1 “An a-priori power analysis (using G*Power; [18]) suggested…”, the same comment as in Comment [5].

As above, we have moved the reference to the end of the sentence.

[7] In Page 8, do not use a full sentence for the title of Section 3.3.1.

Thank you for this suggestion, we have changed the title of Section 3.3.1 from “Packaging is Invisible” to “Invisible Packaging”

[8] In Page 10, the title for Section 3.3.3 doesn’t look good.

We have changed the title of Section 3.3.3 from “Feeling, Not Logic”  to “Feeling overrides Logic” to highlight our finding that an instinctive ‘feel’ for how clean the bowl is can override logical thinking.

[9] In Page 13, Section 4.2 Limitation and further research could be included in Section 5 Conclusion as the last paragraph.

We are keen to retain a section on limitations and future directions that is separate from the overall conclusion because this is the convention when reporting research findings in many fields and is likely expected by readers. We could finish this section with a broader summary of the findings and implications (as currently provided by the conclusion), but it seems prudent to signal this shift in focus with an additional subheading.

Reviewer 2 Report

I have checked the revised version of manuscript sustainability-2367915. All my queries and corrections have been sufficiently addressed by author. I have no further suggestion. I suggest accept in current form. Thank you.

Author Response

We are pleased that we were able to address Reviewer 2's comments sufficiently. We would like to thank all of the reviewers again for their helpful suggestions.

Reviewer 4 Report

This revised manuscript presents some interesting background, and the approach is interesting. The revised version is well written and structured. I think it is ready for publishing. 

Author Response

Thank you for these positive comments and we are pleased that we were able to address your comments sufficiently. We would like to thank all of the reviewers again for their helpful suggestions.