Understanding residents and enterprises' perceptions, behaviors, and their willing to pay for resources recycling in...

Within the context of deteriorating environmental quality and increasing concerns related to resource scarcity, the resource recycling of municipal solid waste (MSW) is attracting increasing attention. This study explored the perception and behaviors of residents and recycling companies in Macau, as well as residents' willingness to pay (WTP) for resources recycling, through questionnaires. The results suggest that residents perceive solid waste to be the second-most important environmental problem in Macau. The majority (75.34%) indicated that waste resources are not effectively managed and recycled and 53.23% admitted to not separating their recyclable materials for recycling. WTP was positively regarded by 56.45% of the respondents, with a mean value of acceptable payment per household of 33.16 MOP month^-1. Results of regression analysis indicate that WTP increases with income level of respondents, whereas education level is not statistically significant. Recycling companies in Macau mainly focus on MSW collection and simple pre-treatment, with almost all resources exported for further processing in other countries and regions, particularly mainland China and Hong Kong. The study noted that recycling facilities and site conditions are very poor, including limited space for recycling and storage, aging facilities, an informal recycling process and a lack of work force. We further recommend several important suggestions for developing effective policies to tackle resources recycling.