پشتیبانی عمومی تفاضلی برای سیاست مدیریت زباله Differential public support for waste management policy: The case of Hong Kong

1. Introduction Public support is a key to successful implementation of waste management policy and policy goal achievement (Wan et al., 2015, 2017). It is particularly significant for environmental policies which emphasize active public participation, such as recycling and recovery measures. Most previous research examined public support for waste management strategies by using single measurement (e.g., Afroz and Masud, 2011; Brown and Johnstone, 2014; Dietz et al., 1998; Elliott et al., 1995; Gelissen, 2007; Saphores et al., 2006). Though there have been a considerable number of studies examining relationship between sociodemographic factors and the level of policy support, little research explores the level of support for different waste management tools and the differences in level of policy support across demographic variables in a single study. Previous studies also confined to measurement deficiency (e.g., single measurement) that the results only provide us with limited understanding of the issue. Given the above background, this research aims at investigating the level of policy support and socio-demographic effect on the public support for various waste management options with reference to Hong Kong. Empirical evidence of the level of public support across policies and socio-demographic factors that account for the variations could inform formulation of effective waste management strategies. It assists policy-makers to work out measures that are responsive to the public, thereby promotes public participation and facilitates policy implementation. The densely populated research context with scarce land resources available also gives a unique insight into countries which share similar background. The study will first brief the study area and research background. Section 3 presents a review of the literature on policy support. Methodological details are given in section 4. Statistical results are reported in section 5. Section 6 is an extensive discussion of the results. Section 6.1 offers explanations for differential policy support across policies in relation to the phenomenon of uncoordinated waste management framework. Section 6.2 begins by comparing socio-demographic effect on the level of policy support with findings from previous studies; and put forward exposition of each finding by drawing reference to these studies. In section 6.3, a new framework toward a coherent waste management and policy relevance based on results are proposed. We also provide suggestions on recruiting public support targeted at people with different socio-demographic backgrounds in section 6.4. The paper will end with a note on the issue of framework applicability to other cities.