What influences different stakeholders' willingness to accept and pay for reusable tableware? Evidence from a CVM survey of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao GBA

Abstract

Takeaway packaging waste seriously pollutes the ecological environment. Better identification of stakeholders' willingness to accept reusable tableware is important for addressing the growing takeaway waste packaging challenges. However, prior literature has not specifically addressed the influencing factors that affect different stakeholders' willingness toward reusable tableware. To this end, this study is designed to explore the key influencing factors and differences in residents', takeaway clerks' and enterprises' willingness to accept (WTA) and pay (WTP) for reusable tableware in Macao, Guangzhou and Zhuhai cities, based on a CVM survey. The results show that, for residents, the WTA of respondents in Macao, Guangzhou and Zhuhai were 56.73 %, 70.60 % and 64.42 % respectively, while their WTP were 73.45 %, 91.11 % and 82.86 % respectively, and their unit WTP values were 3.08 MOP ($0.38), 2.03 CNY ($0.28) and 1.89 CNY ($0.26) respectively. In addition, for takeaway clerks and enterprises, more than half (nearly 60 %) of the respondents were willing to accept the promotion of reusable tableware. Hygiene issues, convenience and cost were the key reasons for respondents' rejecting reusable tableware. Overall, personal attitude and demographic information were the important factors for all three stakeholders' WTA and for residents' WTP, showing that improving different stakeholders' willingness toward RT is the key to building a reusable takeaway packaging system.