The "Clean Your Plate Campaign": A Study of “Traditional Values” and Their Impact on Younger Generations

Abstract

With China’s fast-paced economic development, consumerism has reached unseen heights in recent years. Consequently, this economic growth came with various environmental issues and concerns about food safety. In 2013, in the need of limiting food waste, Chinese society was introduced to its first food waste project, called the “Clean Your Plate Campaign”. Due to the initiative’s great reliance on social trust regarding leftover reduction, the campaign was not able to gain people’s participation, and food waste statistics remained rather the same. Learning from the limitations of the first Clean Your Plate Campaign, by 2020, the government re-launched its second Clean Your Plate Campaign. Furthermore, from 2021, the campaign was supported by sanctions. With the help of the food waste law, in theory, sanctions should raise the participation of Chinese society in this joint leftover reduction. While the two campaigns differ based on policies, they both use social norms as their influencing factors. It was found that there have been recurring patterns of these influencing drivers from governmental campaigning practices. These patterns were founded on the use of the so-called traditional values. Therefore, to acknowledge the use and efficiency of these values, the thesis’s research question was grounded on these “traditional values”. As the two-folded question follows: What is the purpose of “traditional values” within the Clean Your Plate Campaign, and can “traditional values” morally impact younger generations to be more environmentally cautious and change their behavior on food waste? While aiming to answer the research question through this study, this research will also showcase relevant regulations to the food waste law, current conditions of food waste at canteens, and influencing factors on young generations’ behavior towards food waste. Lastly, based on academic studies and this research process, possible guidelines for limiting food waste at canteens will be included in this paper.