The Last but Not the Least Piece of Marine Debris Management: Decoding Factors in Consumers’ Intentions to Purchase Recycled Marine Debris Products

Abstract

With a phenomenal amount of marine debris being retrieved from the coast and sea, an initiative to engage in marine debris recycling, particularly of plastic debris, has been on the governmental agenda in Taiwan in recent years. Consumers purchasing products made from marine debris is a critical driver behind this initiative. It is therefore important to understand the factors influencing consumers’ purchase intentions towards these products. By employing the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), this paper aims to decode the factors and thereby infer potential measures to enhance consumers’ purchase intentions for these specific products in Taiwan, where recycling marine debris is at the beginning stage. By conducting a questionnaire survey, the study collected a total of 392 valid samples and found that a high percentage of respondents had not heard of marine debris labels as well as having never bought products made from marine debris. In addition, by testing the hypotheses using binary logit regression, the study found that ‘environmental attitude’, ‘perceived price’, ‘availability’, and ‘marine debris label’ were the major factors that significantly influenced consumers’ intentions to purchase these products. With a view to increasing market penetration of these products, this paper highlights the need to strengthen environmental education, subsidize manufacturers in the production of products, promote labels and enhance product availability, and enhance public participation in marine conservation activities.