Residents' behaviors, attitudes, and willingness to pay ...

Journal of Environmental Management 106 (2012) 8e16

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Residents’ behaviors, attitudes, and willingness to pay for recycling e-waste in Macau Qingbin Song a, Zhishi Wang a, *, Jinhui Li b a b

Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Macau, Macau SAR, China School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 24 September 2011 Received in revised form 10 March 2012 Accepted 14 March 2012 Available online 2 May 2012

Large quantities of e-waste are presently being generated in Macau, but since recycling facilities and laws on e-waste still need to be developed, most e-waste cannot currently be properly treated. Moreover, little is known about residents’ behaviors, attitudes, and their willingness to pay (WTP) for recycling e-waste. These issues are discussed in this study, based on a questionnaire survey on household electronic product usage. In 2010, “Life span completed” was the primary reason respondents abandoned their electronic products, accounting for about 37.97% of responses; the main disposal methods of e-waste in Macau were “Retailers retrieve from consumer” and “Sale to a recycling corporation.” While having little understanding of e-waste disposal issues, most residents were still willing to hand their e-waste into the government for centralized collection. In addition, the respondents gave “telephone reservation” as their preferred collection method. Finally, the residents’ WTP in Macau was estimated by the logistic regression method. It was found that education level, age and household income were the significant factors affecting residents’ WTP. The monthly mean WTP was 20.03MOP (2.50 US dollar) per household, and the annual WTP was approximately 40,185,067 MOP (5,023,133 US dollar) for all of Macau. The results of our study can help managers develop more effective environmental management policies for ewaste disposal. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: e-waste Behaviors and attitudes WTP Questionnaire survey Macau

1. Introduction Electrical and electronic waste (e-waste) is one of the fastest growing waste streams in the world (Widmer and Oswald-Krapf, 2005; Peralta and Fontanas, 2006), and Macau, the special administrative region of China, is no exception. In the past decade, Macau society has experienced significant changes. Rapid economic development has fostered the increased consumption of electronic products and resulted in the generation of a large amount of e-waste. e-waste generation in Macau was estimated at about 16 kg per capita in 2010, which is close to the average generation amount (16e18 kg per capita) in EU countries(UNU, 2008), and is estimated to continue to increase by 3% a year (JDC, 2011). In spite of this large volume of e-waste generated in Macau, the reclamation and disposal of e-waste are not well implemented: large amounts of e-waste are transferred to other regions and not effectually reused or recycled because of the lack of reclamation channels. Macau is currently faced with an urgent

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ853 83974470; fax: þ853 28838314. E-mail address: [email protected] (Z. Wang). 0301-4797/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2012.03.036

need to find methods of dealing with this increasing volume of ewaste. e-waste is a very different kind of waste, compared to traditional municipal wastes (Khetriwal et al., 2009; Duan et al., 2011). Conventional waste management policies more suited to handling traditional waste types cannot be applied to the e-waste stream because it contains both highly toxic substances, which pose a danger to health and the environment (Guo et al., 2010; Leung et al., 2006), and valuable raw materials which can be recovered (Huisman, 2004; Nnorom and Osibanjo, 2008). However, there is still a lack of special policies on e-waste and specific e-waste recycling facilities in Macau. e-waste management in Macau relies mainly on the Environmental Outline Law (Administrative instruction No. 2/1991) and the General Regulations on Public Places (Administrative instruction No. 28/2004), both of which are mainly focusing on other municipal solid waste. At present, due to Macau’s small geographic area and the high cost of land, solid waste incineration has been given a top priority over other waste disposal methods in Macau (Jin et al., 2006). According to the survey, some e-waste has been mixed with household waste, and, along with ewaste from the government sectors, has been treated in the Macau Incineration Plant (MIP). Though the MIP has been equipped with

Q. Song et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 106 (2012) 8e16

pollution control systems, many valuable materials were wasted in the treatment process. The main flow chart of e-waste in Macau was shown in Fig. 1. According to several studies (Khetriwal et al., 2009; Gottberg et al., 2006; Yamaguchi, 2002; Lee et al., 2007), in order to boost e-waste recycling, one policy is often proposed: extended producer responsibility (EPR). EPR, first proposed by Lindhqvist in 1992, states that producers should extend their responsibility to the entire life of a productdnot only to its production and sale, but also to the reclaiming and disposal of the end-of-life product (Lindhqvist, 1992). The establishment and implement of relevant policies and recycling facilities, which can make e-waste separately disposal and recycling as resources, must be based on consumers’ behavior and their willing to pay (WTP) to recycle e-waste. However, most studies have focused on how to implement EPR policy and on the function of government in e-waste recycling (Fleckinger and Glachant, 2010; Nnoroma et al., 2009; Zhao et al., 2010; Mo et al., 2009), and research on WTP or consumers’ behavior regarding the recycling of e-waste has attracted insufficient attention. If the Macau government wants to implement effective policies and build appropriate facilities for recycling e-waste, the willingness of consumers to participate in recycling activities is essential, for

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without this, neither government policies nor participation by producers can be effectively put into practice. Therefore, there is a pressing need to survey the behaviors and WTP of residents in Macau. Some researchers have begun to focus on the WTP and behaviors survey of recycling e-waste. Nnoroma et al. (2009) analyzed the willingness of residents to participate in electronic waste recycling in Nigeria in 2009, by taking mobile phone recycling as a case study; Wang et al. (2011) investigated the behavior of residents toward electrical and electronic waste (e-waste) recycling in Beijing in 2011; Yoo and Kwak, 2009 applied a contingent valuation (CV) method to obtain at least a preliminary evaluation of the benefits for green electricity in Korea in 2009. In addition, Jin et al. examined the public’s willingness to pay (WTP) for black-faced spoonbill conservation in Macau using the contingent valuation method (CVM) in 2008. The purpose of all these researches is to help policy makers make the relevant policies and laws to solve conflict between development and conservation. This study used a survey questionnaire to determine residents’ WTP and behavior concerning e-waste recycling in Macau, with the intent of gathering information about three areas: (1) the characteristics of residents’ recycling behaviors in Macau, including

E-products Life span completed, Instability and malfunction during use, et al. 17%

E-waste 11%

Donation

48%

Storage in home

24%

Sanitation personnel

Reenter the waste

Trash cans or garbage rooms

stream

Sale Waste or low valuable materials Nonrepairable

Secondhand shop

Recycling shop Transportation Manual dismantling

Recycled materials

Large recycling site

Mainland China Fig. 1. The flow chart of e-waste in Macau.

MIP

10


ownership of electronic products, the reasons and methods for obsolescence, and cost of recycling e-waste; (2) the residents’ attitudes on the centralized collection of e-waste and its collection methods in Macau; (3) the residents’ WTP for recycling e-waste in Macau, analyzed from four aspects (modes of payment; reasons for respondents’ unwillingness to pay for recycling; relationships between WTP and household characteristics; and residents’ detail WTP for recycling e-waste in Macau). 2. e-waste source and generation in Macau In some developing countries (e.g. mainland China, India) (Li et al., 2006), e-waste sources include both domestic generation and imports. In mainland China, e-waste imports are divided into legal and illegal imports. The former is managed and controlled by the China Customs and State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA). Domestic generation comes mainly from three major sources: households; the offices of businesses, private institutions, and government; and the original equipment manufacturing process (Li et al., 2006). In Macau, due to high labor costs and limited land resources, there is lack of space for imported e-wastes, and there is only domestic generation. However, as a result of a total lack of original electronic equipment manufacturing processes in Macau, the domestic generation comes mainly from households and the offices of businesses, institutions, and government. In households, e-waste consists primarily of the four categories of household appliances (TV sets, washing machines, refrigerators, and air conditioners). Waste computers and other office equipments (e.g. copy machines and typewriters) are the major e-waste flows generated by businesses, institutions, and government. According to the survey, the volume of e-waste from households plays the most important role, accounting for about 80% of all e-waste in Macau. In 2010, the generation of e-waste came to 9000 tons. Though the total volume of e-waste is not large, the e-waste issue in Macau is very serious because of the potential environmental risk from the mixtreatment of MSW and WEEE. 3. Methodology 3.1. Household questionnaires In this study, we defined one household as the basic research unit in which two or more generations live together to share expenditures and income. There are two main reasons for using this definition: (1) The household is the primary source of e-waste in Macau; (2) Disposal of end-of-life electronic products is a family practice, as electronic products are generally considered properties common to the family as a whole. The questionnaire contained four sections. The first section comprised some general questions regarding the usage of electronic products and daily e-waste disposal activities. The second section formulated some questions about the knowledge and attitudes of respondents on e-waste segregation and recycling. A

description of current disposal choices and a new hypothetical ewaste recycling method and payment mode were included in the third part. The last part of the questionnaire collected socioeconomic data on the respondents. 3.2. Survey modes There were three methods that could have been used to conduct the survey: face-to-face interview, telephone interview, or mail (Yoo and Kwak, 2009). A telephone interview was the least preferred method because conveying complex information, particularly about hypothetical options, is difficult over the telephone, partly because of the respondent’s limited attention span. In addition, mail surveys are rarely used because they have an extremely low response rate and responses tend to be skewed with a bias toward one point of view; thus, it seemed especially risky to use mail surveys (Yoo and Chae, 2001). Of these methods, we chose to use face-to-face interviews with well-trained interviewers, because the quality of data obtained by this method has been found to be the highestdthe most complete, comprehensive and meaningful (Yoo and Kwak, 2009). The survey response rate was over 99%, which was much higher than what would have been expected from a telephone interview or a mail survey. 3.3. Sampling size and sample distribution The data used in this analysis come from a 2010 questionnaire survey of households in Macau. The study area was restricted to all of Macau (29.5 km2). The total number of households in Macau was 167,187. In order to draw a random sample of this population, the following sample size formulas were adopted in our research (CRS, 2010):

Z 2 ðpð1 pÞÞ d2

ss0 ¼

(1)

Where: Z ¼ Z value (e.g. 1.96 for 95% confidence level) p ¼ percentage of respondents who selected a choice, expressed as a decimal (0.5 used for the sample size needed).d ¼ confidence interval, expressed as a decimal. The above equation is suitable for infinite sampling, but since the number of households is known in our research, the correction for a finite number of families is as follows.

ss ¼

ss0 Ss0 1 1þ F

(2)

Where: F ¼ the number of families in Macau. Based on the sample size formulas, we selected p ¼ 1.96, p ¼ 0.5, and d ¼ 5%, and from these the necessary sample size (383) could be obtained. In order to better complete our goal, the sample size was expanded to 400. This study conducted the survey in Macau including 6 administrative divisions: St. Anthony Parish, St. Lazarus Parish, Lawrence Parish, Tai Parish, Fatima Parish, and the Island District. The detailed distribution of the questionnaires is shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Sampling size and its distribution over the selected parishes. Parish

St. Anthony Parish

St. Lazarus Parish

Lawrence Parish

Tai Parish

Fatima Parish

Island District

Total

Resident households Sample size Community

38,605 90 3

11,003 25 1

14,507 45 2

10,465 25 1

73,140 175 5

19,467 50 2

167,187 400 14


3.4. Willingness to pay for recycling e-waste We used the contingent valuation method (CVM) to quantify each household’s WTP for recycling e-waste in Macau. CVM is a type of stated-preference approach that employs a hypothetical market system to extract WTP or willingness to accept for environmental goods (Carson, 2000; Hadker et al., 1997). CVM has become one of the most widely used valuation techniques because of its flexibility and its ability to estimate total values. The cornerstone principle in measuring the benefits from a proposed policy is the concept of the consumer’s WTP for the policy (Brent, 2006). This concept represents the amount people would be willing to pay to avoid a specified environmental damage, achieve a stated improvement in environmental quality, or receive a specified supply of a public good. In this study, the major objective was to measure the economic benefits of recycling e-waste by Macau households. Existing methods for estimating WTP include Continuous CVM(represented by open-ended questions) and Discrete CVM (represented by Dichotomous Choice questions) (Zhen et al., 2011). In Continuous CVM, the interviewees are free to answer the openended questions by filling out the maximum amount they are willing to pay; also, it is easy for data analysis. The disadvantage is that it is sometimes difficult for the respondents to give the appropriate answer when they don’t have enough background information about the research object, or when they are actually not sure the maximum amount they are able to offer when they have to do so (Loomis and Walsh, 1997). In Discrete CVM, on the other hand, the respondents are required to show their willingness only by choosing either “Yes” or “No”, and they don’t need to indicate the specific amount they are able to pay, thereby avoiding the problem of inconsistency between the stated WTP and actual amount the respondent is willing or able to pay (Hoehn and Randall, 1987).

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To acquire the necessary data for both WTP and the associated specific amount to pay, we used the single-bound Dichotomous CVM method. In the questionnaire, the interviewees were asked “Are you willing to pay for recycling e-waste in Macau?” The answer part included “Yes, I am” and “No, I am not”, and for those who agreed to pay, the following value choices were given: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 MOP (Macau Pataca) per month (1dollar z 8 MOP). 4. Results and discussion 4.1. The socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents A total of 400 personal interviews were administered in 2010 by trained interviewers at respondents’ homes; the sample effective response rate through the face-to-face interviews was 99.75%. Table 2 reports the descriptive statistics for the main socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents. Comparing the demographic profile of the survey respondents with the Macau census data on the characteristics of the Macau population as a whole, the survey data was found to be close to the Macau average. The mean age of the respondents was 35.88 years. Fifty-four percent of respondents were male, the average number of household members was 3.52, and the average educational level was between middle school and high school, but somewhat closer to high school. Specifically, 32.33% respondents had finished high school and 25.57% had completed a college education. The average household income was around 18,953 MOP/month (2369 US dollar/month). 4.2. The usage and disposal of electronic products 4.2.1. Ownership of electronic products in Macau households The number of electronic products in Macau households, according to the survey, is shown in Table 3. The statistical data in

Table 2 Basic socioeconomic information for the surveyed households. Basic information

Group

Population

Proportion of total (%)

Description

Sample average Mean

S.D

Macau (2008)

Age

18e24 25e29 30e39 40e49 50e59 >60

94 79 89 69 43 25

23.56 19.80 22.31 17.29 10.78 6.27

21 27 35 45 55 65

35.88

13.24

e

Gender

Male Female

184 215

46.12 53.88

0 1

0.54

0.50

0.51

No. of household members

1 2 3 4 5 >5

13 48 136 140 43 19

3.26 12.03 34.09 35.09 10.78 4.76

1 2 3 4 5 6

3.52

1.09

3.14

Income of household (Mop/month)

40,000

52 185 116 35 10

13.03 46.37 29.07 8.77 2.51

6000 14,500 25,000 35,000 45,000

18,953

8955

15,764

Education level

None or primary school Middle school High school College Master or above

59 109 129 91 11

14.79 27.32 32.33 22.81 2.76

1 2 3 4 5

2.71

1.06

e

12


Table 3 Number of electronic products owned in Macau household in 2010 (units). Item

Number per 100 households Total volume (10,000 units)

Desktop PCs

Laptop PCs

LCD

CRT

119 19.96

35 5.79

56 9.33

TV sets CRT

LCD

PDP

111 18.64

58 9.66

11 1.82

Refrigerators

Washing machines

Air conditioners

110 18.33

109 18.20

264 44.17

Table 4 Reasons for abandoning electronic products in Macau (%). Reasons

Desktop PC

Life span completed Lack of advanced features Moving to a new house High repair cost or cannot be repaired Instability and malfunction during use Donation Total

LCD

CRT

38.86 25.14 5.71 9.71 17.14 3.43 100

37.50 37.50 1.92 4.81 16.35 1.92 100

Laptop PC

TV sets

27.27 25.00 11.36 6.82 27.27 2.27 100

CRT

LCD

43.65 21.55 6.63 8.29 19.89 0.00 100

30.26 36.84 5.26 11.84 14.47 1.32 100

Table 3 show that there is more than one of each type of electronic product per household. Because of the humid subtropical climate in Macau, the number of air conditioners per household is the highest of all appliances, as much as 264 units per 100 households, followed by personal computers (PCs including desktop and laptop), TV sets, refrigerators, and washing machines. Specifically, with the development of technology and the rapid rise of household income in Macau, the number of LCDs has exceeded that of CRTs for the desktop PCs (LCD/CRT ratio was 3.4), and the number of the desktop PCs and laptops was 154 units and 56 units per 100 households, respectively. Due to the relatively long lifetime of TV sets, the CRT monitor was still the dominant type of television screen in 2010. Compared with urban households in mainland China (NBSC, 2009), it can be seen that except for washing machines and refrigerators, the number of other three categories per 100 households in Macau is far higher than in mainland China. This was especially true for PCs and air conditioners, which are 3.19 times and 2.47 times higher, respectively. 4.2.2. Reasons for discarding electronic products This study implemented an investigation to find out why residents discard their electronic products; results are shown in Table 4. “Life span completed” was the primary reason, accounting for about 37.97%, while “Lack of advanced features” and “Instability and malfunction during use” were also important reasons, as much as 23.94% and 18.85%, respectively. Many Macau residents discarded their old electronic products when they moved to a new home, or cited “High repair cost or cannot be repaired” as reasons for discarding the product. In addition, about 1.34% of respondents chose to donate their old products to

Washing machines

Refrigerators

Air conditioners

Average

46.49 16.67 14.04 10.09 12.28 0.44 100

45.00 11.67 11.25 8.75 22.50 0.83 100

34.76 17.11 18.72 8.02 20.86 0.53 100

37.97 23.94 9.36 8.54 18.85 1.34 100

programs serving victims of natural disasters or lower-income residents. The reasons varied considerably among the different categories of electronic products, due to their unique characteristics. For example, PCs are usually considered an information technology product, and residents may have higher expectations for their function. Therefore, the proportion of “lack of advanced features” is relatively higher than for other products. 4.2.3. Discard methods for electronic products The flow of e-waste in Macau is far from understood, since little attention has been paid to it. The published research on e-waste flows in Macau is scanty, and this study is really the first to focus on the subject. The first step in the process is consumer disposal, and the disposal methods are shown in Table 5. Based on the statistical data, we can see that the main disposal method is “retailer retrieves from consumer”, which accounts for about 31.62%, followed by “discard into refuse bin”, “sale to a recycling corporation”, “storage in the home” and “donation”. The disposal methods in Macau are considerably different from those in mainland China, in which about 70% of old electronic products are stored in the home (Yang et al., 2008). The possible reasons for this difference are that the collection prices are often low in Macau, and the household income per month is relatively high (18,953MOP (2369 US dollar), shown in Table 2); hence the residents of Macau care little about the small financial benefit of selling discarded electronic products. 4.2.4. Recovery prices for e-waste in Macau At present, there are no formal recovery enterprises in Macau, and most e-waste is collected by retailers and recycling companies. The recovery price is an important impact consideration for

Table 5 Disposal methods for unwanted electronic and electrical products in Macau (%). Disposal methods

Storage in the home Retailer retrieves from consumer Sale to recovery corporation Discard into refuse bin Donation Total

Desktop PCs LCD

CRT

17.72 26.58 22.15 19.62 13.92 100

22.11 15.79 18.95 33.68 9.47 100

Laptop PCs

25.00 27.27 22.73 13.64 11.36 100

TV sets CRT

LCD

8.59 27.61 24.54 23.93 15.34 100

7.14 38.57 18.57 24.29 11.43 100

Washing machines

Refrigerators

Air conditioners

Average

9.59 37.44 17.35 27.40 8.22 100

6.44 38.20 14.16 31.33 9.87 100

7.32 41.46 14.02 26.83 10.37 100

12.99 31.62 19.06 25.09 11.25 100


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Table 6 Recovery prices for five kinds of e-waste in Macau and mainland China. Regions

PCs

TV sets

Washing machines

Refrigerators

Air conditioners

Macau MOP (US dollar) Mainland China Yuan (US dollar)

72.31 (9.04) 146.75(22.65)

42.82(5.35) 94.25(14.54)

43.91(5.49) 68(10.49)

47.86(5.98) 127.5(19.68)

75.36(9.42) 160(24.69)

residents’ willingness to hand their e-waste into the government. In general, the higher the recovery price, the lower the willingness. Recovery prices for five categories of e-waste are shown in Table 6. Here it can be seen that in Macau the recovery price is the highest for air conditionersdas much as 75.36 MOP (9.42 US dollar), followed by PCs, 72.31MOP (9.04 US dollar), and the recovery prices of the other three categories of e-waste are all about the samedbetween 40 and 50 MOP (4.00e6.25 US dollar). Comparing these recovery prices with those in mainland China, it can be seen that the prices in Macau are very lowdless than half of those in mainland China (1MOP z 0.81Yuan), a result which encourages the transboundary movement of e-waste into mainland China. 4.3. Residents’ attitudes toward e-waste in Macau 4.3.1. Public understanding of the e-waste issue in Macau In our survey, about 70% respondents thought that if e-waste cannot be appropriately processed there will be heavy impacts on the Macau environment and human health. Meanwhile, these respondents were given the information on the available disposal options and their possible impact (Fig. 2). It was found that 33.43% of respondents did not know the possible impacts that could result from e-waste; about 25.15% of respondents thought that the heavy metals (Pb, Hg, Cd) and other hazardous substances (brominated flame retardants) contained in e-waste would have negative effects on the environment and human health; 23.08% of respondents considered only a portion of e-waste hazardous; another 18.34% of respondents thought that identification standards should be used to determine the hazard level of e-waste. These survey results show that about 30% of the respondents thought that e-waste will not bring any harm to the environment, and many residents did not know what e-waste was, let alone that it could have negative impacts. Residents’ limited understanding of e-waste hazards indicates that some appropriate measures need to be taken to solve e-waste issues. The government should therefore

conduct a vigorous public education campaign to advance knowledge about e-waste, and only when residents fully understand its harm management policies and measures on e-waste be effectively carried out. 4.3.2. Public attitudes on the collection of e-waste In other countries and regions, e-waste is usually managed by a unified coalition of government departments or other organizations. In our questionnaires, the willingness of residents to hand over their obsolete electronic products to a government department was investigated. About 56.67% of respondents expressed a positive attitude toward this method; 37.18% of respondents indicated that their willingness would depend on the categories of electronic products and the collection procedures. If the obsolete electronic products were still in good working condition or could fetch a high sale price, they would be more willing to sell to a second-hand shop or take other measures to deal with their ewaste. Only 6.15% respondents expressed their unwillingness to hand the e-waste over to the government. Effective collection methods can promote the recycling rate of ewaste. In our study, the respondents were given the options of several collection methods that could be taken by government departments. The results, in Fig. 3, show that the highest percentage of respondents (45.27%) expect governments to use a “telephone reservation” system to collect e-waste, followed by the availability of a “fixed collection place” (34.51%), a “designated collection time and collection place” (18.68%), and other collection methods (1.54%). These results can provide some positive suggestions for methods of collecting e-waste in the future. 4.4. Residents’ WTP for recycling e-waste in Macau 4.4.1. Modes of payment According to other research (Gottberg et al., 2006; Nixon and Saphores, 2007; Khetriwal et al., 2009; Shinsuke et al., 2006), there are three main possible payment modes for e-waste: Advance

40% 35%

33.43%

30% 25.15% 23.08%

25%

18.34%

20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Unknown

Portion of e-waste is hazardous

Only heavy metals are hazardous

Identification standards

Fig. 2. Public understanding of e-waste hazards in Macau households.

14

Q. Song et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 106 (2012) 8e16 Table 8 Relationships between WTP and household characteristics.

Others 1.54% Designated collection time and place 18.68%

Telephone reservation 45.27%

Recycling Fee (ARF), Pre-Disposal Fee (PDF), and Monthly Recycling Fee. In most countries (e.g. EU, Switzerland, and USA), an Advance Recycling Fee has been adopted for recycling e-waste. In the Netherlands (Gottberg et al., 2006), all categories of e-waste except information and communications technology (ICT) are subject to a compulsory scheme managed by a producer responsibility organization (PRO). Here, fees set to recover the annual costs of the scheme are added to the price of new products. In California (USA), the Electronic Waste Recycling Act of 2003 (the first such law in the US) mandates ARFs ranging from $6e10 on new retail purchases of computer monitors and televisions (Nixon and Saphores, 2007). In Switzerland (Khetriwal et al., 2009), both SWICO and SENS charge Advance Recycling Fees. According to e-waste law, retailers are required to inform customers about the final price of the product, which would include the ARF. The Pre-Disposal Fee (PDF) has mainly been adopted in Japan. According to the Electric Household Appliance Recycle Law passed in 1998, producers and consumers share the responsibility for disposal. In the production process, producers fund the establishment and operation of e-waste treatment facilities, but consumers pay recycling fees when they discard their electronic products (Shinsuke et al., 2006). The Monthly Recycling Fee has often been adopted in the management of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) and Wastewater. In our questionnaires, the three payment modes were discussed. It can be seen from Table 7 that the Advance Recycling Fee was accepted by more people (73.93%) than were other payment modes. The Advance Recycling Fee is also consistent with the payment mode most often utilized in e-waste management throughout the world. The results for the Pre-Disposal Fee and the Monthly Recycling Fee were roughly equal, with about 64% of respondents willing to pay through one of these methods. With the Pre-Disposal Fee, however, it is difficult to calculate in detail the WTP for recycling e-waste because it does not distinguish Table 7 Three payment modes for e-waste disposal in Macau. Pre-Disposal Fee

Monthly Recycling Fee

Respondents Rate (%) Respondents Rate (%) Respondents Rate (%) 73.93% 26.07%

S.E.

Wald

df

Sig.

0.308 0.029 7.29E5 0.264 0.113 0.171

0.130 0.010 1.64E5 0.233 0.115 0.720

5.610 9.428 19.874 1.286 0.972 0.056

1 1 1 1 1 1

0.018a 0.002a 8.27E6a 0.257 0.324 0.813

Denotes significant at 1% level.

among different categories of waste. Therefore, Monthly Recycling Fee was the main method considered, in order to determine the residents’ WTP for recycling e-waste in this study.

Fig. 3. Possible collection methods for e-waste in Macau.

Agree 295 Disagree 104

B

Education Age Household Income Gender No. of household members Constant a

Fixed collection place 34.51%

Attitudes Advance Recycling Fee

Variables

255 144

63.91% 36.09%

258 140

64.91% 35.09%

4.4.2. Reasons for respondents not willing to pay In the WTP survey considering the Monthly Recycling Fee, 64.91% respondents expressed their willingness, while 35.09% respondents said “No” to using this method to pay for recycling ewaste. The protest rate may seem high but is acceptable, compared with some previous studies that have estimated WTP for environmental goods (Giraud et al., 2002; Cho et al., 2005; Jin et al., 2006). No guidelines exist in the international literature about how much protest invalidates a WTP study (Brouwer et al., 2008). Our study considered why these respondents were not willing to pay for recycling their e-waste. Several major reasons can be given to explain why respondents gave negative responses, based on the residents’ answers in our survey. First, most respondents thought that MSW (including e-waste) disposal has been free of charge in the past, and recycling e-waste is not their responsibility, but the responsibility of the government. The second main reason is that e-waste in Macau can be sold to retailers, so that respondents not only do not pay for e-waste, but even receive some money from e-waste sales (see Table 6). Third, some respondents, whose household incomes were relative lower or who considered the economy to be depressed, thought that payment for e-waste disposal would increase their cost of living in the future. Fourth, some respondents were satisfied with the status quo, and hope to continue the current situation. Finally, some respondents did not give their reasons for their protest responses. This may be because they did not understand what they were asked to do in the survey so they answered the valuation question anyway. 4.4.3. Relationships between WTP and household characteristics A regression model was developed to explore the influence factors on recycling willingness. Here respondents selected their willing to pay for e-waste recycling with two alternatives: 1-willing to pay for e-waste recycling; 0-not willing to pay for e-waste

Table 9 Distribution of responses by bid amount. Bid MOP (US dollar)

10(1.25) 20(2.50) 30(3.75) 40(5.00) 50(6.25) 60(7.50) 70(8.75) 80(10.00) 100(12.50) Total

Frequency “Yes” votes

Percent (%)

87 51 45 8 44 2 1 3 18 259

21.80 12.78 11.28 2.01 11.03 0.50 0.25 0.75 4.51 64.91


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Table 10 Estimation of WTP in Macau. Item

N

Mean MOP(US dollar)/month

Values Total WTP MOP (US dollar)/year

399 20.03(2.50) 40,185,067(5,023,133)

Std. deviation

Std. error mean

95% confidence intervals Lower

Upper

24.74(3.09)

1.24(0.16)

17.58(2.20) 35,269,769(4,408,721)

22.46(2.81) 45,060,240(5,632,530)

recycling, thereby making the dependent variable of the regression model non-continuous. When the dependent variable is in 0e1 style, researchers can choose between logistic regression and probit regression (Wang et al., 2011). In this study, logistic regression was selected as our evaluation method. The definitions of the variables used in our logistic regression are presented in the description for Table 2.The logistic regression was performed using SPSS 17.0, and the results given in Table 8. They indicate that Education Level, Age, and Household Income Level are statistically significant at the 1% significance level. Moreover, the coefficient of Education Level and Household Income Level are positive. This results support the hypothesis that the probability of the respondents’ saying “yes” to the WTP question increases with education level and household income. The coefficient of Age is negative, which makes sense because usually the young people have a higher education level and are more knowledgeable about environmental protection, and, most of all, hope to take appropriate methods to improve their living environment. Other variables, such as respondents’ gender and number of members in the household, were not statistically significant. This shows that these characteristics have little influence on respondents’ WTP. Many scholars’ results support the conclusion that income and education level have positive relationship with the willingness of residents in e-waste recycling (Hornik et al., 2005; Yoo and Kwak, 2009; Tonglet et al., 2004), which is in accordant with our research results. In addition, in our study, Age is statistically negatively significant at the 1% significance level, different with above other researches. In addition, Education level was found to play the major role in residents’ WTP (B ¼ 0.308) compared with the other two main factors (B ¼ 0.029 and B ¼ 7.29E5). Therefore, the most effective method for improving e-waste recycling is to increase the education level of the population. This approach, however, is a long-term plan; for the short term, it will be more effective to propagandize ewaste knowledge to promote residents’ understanding of e-waste impacts. 4.4.4. The WTP for recycling e-waste in Macau Based on interviewers’ comments, the WTP elicitation procedures were well within the respondents’ abilities. Table 9 presents the distribution of responses to the valuation question, indicating the total number of respondents who stated that they would be willing to pay for recycling at each bid level, ranging from MOP 10 to 100 per month. The total percentage of “yes” responses was 64.91%, higher than that of the “no” responses (35.09%). Note that the number of “yes” responses to the first bid amount fell, roughly, as the bid increased, in line with the economic theory of demand. These estimates represent the minimum expected WTP of respondents. As shown in Table 10, the mean WTP and its confidence interval were also performed using SPSS 17.0. We got the mean WTP through the Descriptive Statistics of the survey data, and then One Sample T-test was used to estimate its confidence interval (95%) in

this study. From Table 10, through analyzing the statistical data, we can see that the mean WTP value per household in Macau was 20.03 MOP/month (2.50 US dollar/month), and under the 95% confidence intervals, the mean WTP lower and upper values were 17.58 MOP (2.20 US dollar) and 22.46 MOP (2.81 US dollar), respectively. When expanding the sample to all Macau households, one critical concern is the external generalization of the sample values to those for all of Macau. This is dependent on the representativeness of the sample frame and the response rate of the survey. As described earlier, the sample frame was a random sample of the households, and was selected by a professional method. The sample response rate through the face-to-face interviews was almost 100%. Thus, the data appear to provide us with exact figures for the social value of recycling e-waste. Based on the total number of households in Macau, it can be deduced that the annual WTP value of Macau as a whole would be approximately 40,185,067 MOP (5,023,133 US dollar), with a range (at the 95% confidence interval) from 35,269,769 MOP (4,408,721 US dollar) to 45,060,240 MOP (5,632,530 US dollar). Comparing with other researches (Yoo and Kwak, 2009; Jin et al., 2008), it can be known that the WTP in our study is higher than WTPs for using green electricity in Korea (1.8 US dollar), and lower than WTPs for protecting the black-faced spoonbill in Macau (2.25 US dollar), which means that the residents have more pressing needs for establishing the suitable recycling facilities to recycle e-waste. This conclusion, with the above results, could be used as reference values to design a conservation payment scheme and determine the total funding required promoting the recycling of e-waste in Macau. 5. Conclusions With rapid economic growth and tourism industry development over the past several decades, accompanied by the entry of more and more electronic products into residents’ households, ewaste issues have arisen. Recycling of e-waste in Macau is still in its initial stages, and e-waste problems have become a potential threat to the environment and human health. Under ordinary circumstances that simply take into consideration the market-based value of recycling, the e-waste problem cannot be properly assessed. Therefore, for the purpose of developing new policies, the results of this study can be useful for understanding the status of the issue, residents’ attitudes, and WTP for e-waste disposal, for the policy makers and managers, and can be used to promote the recycling of e-waste in Macau. According to the low recovery prices and the attitudes (willing to hand their e-waste into the government for consistent centralized management and the preferred collection method “telephone reservation”), e-waste can be collected more easily, and the most effective way would be taken more quickly. The results that “The monthly mean WTP was 2.50 US dollar per household, and the annual WTP was approximately 45,023,133 US dollar for all of Macau”, mean that the residents are willing to pay for constructing

16


the collection system and the recycling facilities. Therefore, Macau has owned a good condition to manage and recycle the e-waste under the current conditions. In addition, according to the survey results that the probability of the respondents’ saying “yes” to the WTP question increases with education level and household income, and decreases with the age of the respondent, the government can takeeffective measures to further improve the residents’ WTP for recycling e-waste. In light of no appropriate facilities to treat (dismantling and recovery) e-waste in Macau, the construction and improvement of e-waste recycling infrastructure should be highlight on the first step as the foundation work for the e-waste management system. Based on this, compulsive e-waste recycling and effective monitoring system could be tentative implemented. Moreover, although most residents in Macau are aware the hazards of e-waste to environment, there is a need for educational campaigns to promulgate the proper methods to recycle and reuse the e-waste for the residents. And it is necessary to enrich elementary education in environmental protection and resource conservation to foster the e-waste recycling habits from the child. Acknowledgments This study was funded by the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 program 2009AA06Z304), the project “The controlling of vehicle exhaust pollution and electronic waste and their recycling technology demonstration in Macao” (SQ2009AA06Z3483770), and by the University of Macau. References Brent, R.J., 2006. Applied Cost-Benefit Analysis, second ed. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham. Brouwer, R., van Beukering, P., Sultanian, E., 2008. The impact of the bird flu on public willingness to pay for the protection of migratory birds. Ecol. Econ. 64, 575e585. Carson, R.T., 2000. Contingent valuation: a user’s guide. Environ. Sci. Tech. 34, 1413e1418. Cho, S.H., Newman, D.H., Bowker, J.M., 2005. Measuring rural homeowners’ willingness to pay for land conservation easements. Forest Pol. Econ. 7, 757e770. Creative Research Systems (CRS), 2010. Sample Size Formulas for Our Sample Size Calculator. Available at: http://www.surveysystem.com/sample-size-formula. htm. Last accessed May 2011. Duan, H.B., Hou, K., Li, J.H., Zhu, X.D., 2011. Examining the technology acceptance for dismantling of waste printed circuit boards in light of recycling and environmental concerns. J. Environ. Manag. 92, 392e399. Fleckinger, P., Glachant, M., 2010. The organization of extended producer responsibility in waste policy with product differentiation. J. Environ. Econ. Manag. 59, 57e66. Giraud, K., Turcin, B., Loomis, J., Cooper, J., 2002. Economic benefit of the protection program for the Steller sea lion. Marine Policy 26, 451e458. Gottberg, A., Morris, J., Pollard, S., Mark-Herbert, C., Cook, M., 2006. Producer responsibility, waste minimisation and the WEEE directive: case studies in ecodesign from the European lighting sector. Sci. Total Environ. 359, 38e56. Guo, Y.Y., Huo, X., Li, Y., Wu, K.S., Liu, J.X., Huang, J.R., Zheng, G.N., Xiao, Q.N., Yang, H., Wang, Y.P., Chen, A.M., Xu, X.J., 2010. Monitoring of lead, cadmium, chromium and nickel in placenta from an e-waste recycling town in China. Sci. Total Environ. 408, 3113e3117. Hadker, N., Sharma, S., David, A., Muraleedharan, T.R., 1997. Willingness to pay for Borivli National Park: evidence from a contingent valuation. Ecol. Econ. 21 (2), 105e122. Hoehn, J.P., Randall, A., 1987. A satisfactory benefit cost indicator from contingent valuation. J. Environ. Econ. Manag. 14 (3), 1226e1247.

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