Evaluating Citizens’ Willingness to Participate in Hypothetical Scenarios Towards Sustainable Plastic Waste Management

Abstract

Plastic waste (PW) is considered a global environmental problem, which has created a big challenge for managers to find the best solution to the ocean’s plastic pollution. Vietnam has been listed among the top five countries that have been discharging large amounts of PW into the ocean without appropriate management and treatment. Therefore, research that focuses on understanding citizens’ preferences towards sustainable PW management (PWM) in Vietnam is crucial, which will help to achieve the goal of PW reduction. This study applied a choice experiment to evaluate the effects on citizens’ preferences for the reduction of plastic under different levels of environmental awareness, estimating the citizens’ heterogeneity preference for a PWM program and developing PWM scenarios based on the results of the empirical analysis. The results indicate that multi-stakeholder cooperation, a policy on single-use plastics ban, the adoption of green life and zero-waste events, the establishment of waste collection stations, and the introduction of eco-friendly alternatives are among effective factors influencing PWM. It is also found that the following characteristics affect the citizens’ preferences for PWM program, namely: 1) citizens' awareness of the impact of plastics on the environment, 2) education level, and 3) citizens' living areas. Furthermore, this study suggests four PWM scenarios, which were built from the positive-preference attributes, for decision making applied in countries without an adequate PWM policy and infrastructure. These outcomes are expected to be a useful reference for developing the policy and management strategy in the near future, which can mitigate the PW pollution.

Keywords: Community engagement, Choice experiment, Heterogeneity preference, Plastic waste management, Policy enforcement.