Assessing Consumers’ Intentions Towards Green Alternatives of Disposable Packaging: A Case Study in Beijing and Shanghai

ABSTRACT

China’s plastic pollution has gotten worse, especially during the COVID pandemic when the city’s lockdowns boosted the food takeout business. Although the government has made efforts in curbing the use of conventional single-use plastic packaging, the problem is still looming up in the critical time of building ecological civilization. The key to resolve the overwhelming usage of disposable plastic packaging lies in reduction, along with using green alternatives biodegradable packaging and returnable containers. The study investigated consumers’ willingness to adopt new alternatives by applying the extended classical behavioral theory the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The measurement scale, developed upon previous literature, gains validated reliability and validity after running confirmatory factory analysis (CFA) in SmartPLS. The study distributed 536 questionnaires online, targeting consumers from Beijing and Shanghai. 430 valid samples were collected and analyzed, with results showing that consumers’ perceived behavior control has strong and positive effect on their willingness to pay more to using biodegradable packaging and willingness to participate in the returnable container programs. The environmental attitude, social norms and past green behavior show less direct relationships with people’s adopting intentions. Their effects on the intentions are mediated by perceived behavior control disproportionately. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.