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In today’s world, urban pollution causes severe challenges to the sustainable development of society (Wen et al., 2022). Among ecological problems, pollution generated by plastic waste is becoming a heavy burden. Broadly used as convenient shopping tools, plastic bags are closely linked to urbanization and living standards. Plastic shopping bags are overused; the world consumes 0.5–1 trillion plastic bags annually, equating to 1–2 million bags consumed each minute (Nielsen et al., 2019). Plastic bag manufacturing and use are rapidly increasing worldwide. Plastic bags are made from non-renewable resources, such as oil, ethylene, and coal (Wan, 2007). The excessive use of them not only wastes resources, but also pollutes the environment. Plastic shopping bags pose larger environmental risks in developing countries, owing to a lack of understanding of the negative consequences of plastic bags in these countries (Ramaswamy & Sharma, 2011). Most plastic bags are abandoned after a single use, and the debris is then dumped in landfills. By 2050, roughly 12 billion tons of plastic garbage will be buried in the natural environment (Geyer et al., 2017).
Plastic bag disposal has become a global challenge (Vanapalli et al., 2021). The topic of World Environment Day 2018 was Beat Plastic Pollution. It called on people to minimize plastic pollution. China is the world’s largest manufacturer and consumer of plastic bags, with around 3 billion used daily (Kasidoni et al., 2015). Under the circumstances, China is one of the first countries to implement policies restricting plastic shopping bags. Since June 1, 2008, China has banned plastic shopping bags less than 0.025mm thick and implemented a paid system in all retail outlets. The policy’s core tenet is letting commodity retailers set their prices for plastic bags. It makes an implicit fee on plastic bags apparent, which was previously buried in the price of other goods. The policy has yielded certain outcomes. The annual growth rate of plastic shopping bag uses has steadily declined. Plastic shopping bag use in supermarkets decreased by two-thirds by the end of 2016, resulting in a total reduction of 1.4 million tons (Zhu & Zhao, 2016). The Chinese government introduced new legislation in 2020. The purpose of the new policy is to beautify people’s living environment and raise environmental protection awareness.
The guideline for the pricing of plastic bags is an essential topic for policymakers to consider. In the market, consumers take into account their habits, opportunity costs, and other issues to make choices. Therefore, it’s critical to comprehend the information about their true purchase willingness. Benefiting from information and network technology, it is more popular to solve the challenge of information collection through market research websites (Sun & Li, 2022). This study tries to investigate consumers’ cognitions and insights toward plastic bags. How much are consumers likely to pay for plastic shopping bags? What is the relationship between consumers’ willingness to pay and their social-demographic characteristics information? What other factors influence consumers’ willingness to pay? A random survey was designed and conducted in four cities in China. Given the first-hand data, this study initially analyzes respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics information and attitudes toward plastic shopping bags. Afterwards, this study explores factors influencing willingness to pay.