Public risk perception and treatment preferences for marine microplastic pollution: Choice experiments and the latent class model

Abstract

Marine microplastics are a new pollutant that threatens human health and the global marine ecosystem. The public is a direct victim of marine microplastic pollution (MMP), and the public’s behaviour and choices can also play a key role in the management of MMP. Assessing public risk perceptions and treatment preferences for microplastic pollutants can provide a basis for governments to improve the efficiency of pollutant treatment. On the basis of socioeconomic research data from the Jiaozhou Bay region of the Yellow Sea, China, a choice experiment model was used to test the public’s risk perception level and preferences for pollution management. The results of the study revealed that 69.23% of the public could perceive the health risks of marine microplastics. The public had the strongest governance preference for implementing marine microplastic-specific monitoring, followed by support for recycling measures, and the weakest preference for restricting the use of plastic products. Public health risk perception, age, and education influenced governance preferences. The heterogeneity analysis revealed that the public’s governance preferences can be characterized into two groups: “comprehensive governance” and “preventive regulation”. Recycling preferences were not significant in the “preventive regulation group”, with age and risk perception being the main reasons for the differences