Abstract :
[en] Agricultural plastics are indispensable in agricultural production. Of them, mulch film plays a particularly crucial role. The application of mulch film has significantly improved agricultural operation conditions and increased crop yields by 20-50%, making substantial contributions to ensuring food security and enhancing farmers’ incomes. However, due to the difficulties in recovery and high recycling costs, agricultural white pollution has become a significant issue. This adversely affects crop yield and quality and results in environmental, economic, and social problems such as landscape pollution and microplastic contamination, posing severe threats to the environment, food safety, and human health. As a great agricultural country, China consumes the largest amount of agricultural plastics globally. Simultaneously, China faces the most severe agricultural white pollution in the world. To promote sustainable agriculture development, the Chinese government has increasingly prioritized the issue of agricultural plastic waste (APW). In recent years, agricultural plastic waste management (APWM) has been designated an essential task in agriculture and rural development. Nonetheless, the current management is still plagued by issues such as undetermined about the cost-effectiveness of different APWM measures, unreliable management funds, and the uncertain of the multi-stakeholder cooperation mechanism.
In response, the research follows the logical framework of “problem diagnosis-comprehensive performance evaluation-sustainable management mechanism design” to explore the sustainable mechanism for APWM in China. Specifically, the research primarily focuses on two research topics and three research objectives, addressing four research questions. The first topic emphasizes the comprehensive performance evaluation of mulch film management. Applying the cost-benefit analysis, the study focuses on the first research objective, comprehensive performance analysis of two environmentally friendly mulch film management measures currently promoted in China: the applications of thicker mulch film and biodegradable mulch film. By defining the boundaries of mulch film procurement, utilization, and treatment, the model thoroughly calculates the costs and benefits incurred during the management process, thereby addressing the question, “What is the comprehensive performance of APWM?” The second topic lies in developing a sustainable APWM mechanism from the public participation perspective. By incorporating the principles of multi-entity corporations in environmental pollution control, the study integrates the public, a crucial stakeholder, into the management and constructs a sustainable management mechanism. In this regard, the sustainable APWM scheme based on public participation perspective was explored firstly. Initially, respondents’ payment willingness for APWM was statistically described to answer the question, “Is it feasible of the public payment scheme for APWM?” Further, the extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) model was applied to clarify respondents’ payment decision pathways and answer the question, “What are the psychological decision-making pathways of the public’s payment decision?” Secondly, a randomized controlled trial (RCT) was designed to investigate the effectiveness of the informational intervention in enhancing the public payment scheme. Difference-in-difference (DID) model was applied to examine the changes in respondents’ willingness to pay (WTP) before and after the intervention to answer the question of “How to promote the public payment scheme for APWM evolve from idea to reality?”
The following conclusions have been drawn through the above research: Firstly, the current government policy to promote environmentally friendly mulch film management measures are lack of rationality. For thicker mulch film, it is cost-effective and has great potential to be promoted. However, it could have been adopted spontaneously even without financial support and the current government subsidy standard for it results in a certain degree of inefficient allocation of government financial resources. Besides, the inadequacy of its promotion rests in the policy makers’ lack of recognition for waste treatment, which is a weak point but not adequately supported by the current subsidies. For biodegradable mulch film, its further development requires continuous external funding support to maintain its application due to its economic inefficiency. Nevertheless, the current subsidy standard exceeds what it requires. In addition, deficiencies in the product’s performance restrict its universal application. Secondly, the public payment scheme for APWM is feasible to be a promising supplement to the existing APWM scheme. More than 2/5 of the respondents are willing to pay for APWM, and the average WTP is CNY 482.6 per household year. Further, the driving pathways of their payment decisions are clarified under the extended TPB model. Attitude (AT), subjective norm (SN), perceived behavior control (PBC), environmental cognition (EC), and environmental emotion (EE) have significant positive influences on payment intention (INT) towards APWM, with AT exerting the greatest impact, followed by SN and PBC, and EC and EE showing minimal direct effects. Thirdly, information intervention strategy effectively enhances the public payment scheme for APWM. The public’s WTP for APWM is generally malleable, providing information targeting normative beliefs and control beliefs can significantly increase the WTP by CNY 307.2 and CNY 400.5, respectively.
On this basis, the research proposes the following recommendations to promote APWM in China: Firstly, the government should optimize the subsidy standards and dimensions for different environmentally friendly mulch film management measures according to their comprehensive cost-benefit performance. Besides, it is imperative to raise farmers’ comprehensive knowledge of APWM and stimulate enterprises to reduce the costs and increase the efficiency of different mulch films to promote the management more effectively. Secondly, it is feasible to enhance APWM by initiating the public payment scheme. A multi-pronged initiatives including strengthening the public’s comprehensive evaluation of APWM and environmental cognition, reinforcing subjective norms of paying for APWM, establishing the payment platform to open up channels for the public to pay, and nurturing the public’s environmental emotions are beneficial for the public payment scheme. Thirdly, information strategy could be leveraged policymakers to promote the public payment scheme. It is imperative to prioritize strengthening relevant norm and constructing public payment mechanism. Information regarding reinforcing norm and control beliefs should be highlighted to enable the information strategy to have a better effect in enhancing the public payment scheme for APWM.
