PLASTIC BAGS FROM A SUSTAINABILITY PERSPECTIVE: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

The plastic bags, throughout the life cycle, constitute a relevant problem within the sustainability for its generated impacts, be it in the environmental, social or economic aspect. This work aimed to identify the main scientific studies that address the issues of plastic bags from the perspective of sustainability between the years 2000 and 2018. For this, a systematic review of the literature was carried out, using a quantitative and qualitative approach, which made it possible to survey the state of the art on plastic bags in the perspective of sustainability from 2000 to the current year. The searches were conducted in July 2018, in three databases that bring together the main national and international journals. It was observed that 73.68% of the studies analyzed are concentrated in 2013 and that 84.21% are published in international journals, 42.11% of which are in journals with A1 to B2 in the area of public and business administration, accounting sciences and tourism. It was possible to divide them into three categories: generated impacts, disseminated environmental practices and consumer behavior / perception. In this last category, although it was the one that presented the most studies, it was observed that all were carried out considering the environmental and social sustainability pillars, giving great importance to the consumption problem, however, the economic pillar was not mentioned. Thus, there is a research gap regarding the analysis of the feasibility for companies to create or maintain plastic bags with environmental characteristics or not, according to the consumer's behavior/perception.