IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nathum/v5y2021i2d10.1038_s41562-020-00961-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Air pollution as a determinant of food delivery and related plastic waste

Author

Listed:
  • Junhong Chu

    (NUS Business School, National University of Singapore)

  • Haoming Liu

    (Department of Economics, National University of Singapore
    IZA)

  • Alberto Salvo

    (Department of Economics, National University of Singapore)

Abstract

Plastic waste is a growing environmental concern. The food delivery industry is criticized for its environmental impact, especially its current use of plastic packaging. At the same time, the environment impacts the industry. We show that air pollution is a behavioural driver of food delivery consumption in the urban developing world. Our hypothesis is that individuals are more likely to order delivery when their personal cost of exposure to the outdoor environment rises. We surveyed office workers in three Chinese cities and found that an increase of 100 μg m–3 in particulate matter pollution (PM2.5) raised the propensity to order food delivery by two-fifths of the sample mean. We used photographic evidence to quantify disposable plastic in meal delivery. Data from an online delivery platform with a broad customer base indicate a smaller, but still substantial, causal link between air quality and food delivery. Overall, air pollution control brings plastic waste co-benefits.

Suggested Citation

  • Junhong Chu & Haoming Liu & Alberto Salvo, 2021. "Air pollution as a determinant of food delivery and related plastic waste," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(2), pages 212-220, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nathum:v:5:y:2021:i:2:d:10.1038_s41562-020-00961-1
    DOI: 10.1038/s41562-020-00961-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-00961-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41562-020-00961-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chunying Cui & Dengke He & Ziwei Yan, 2023. "The Environment–Economy Synergistic Improvement Effect of the “Two-Oriented Society” Pilot Area in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-23, January.
    2. Guo, Liwen & Cheng, Zhiming & Tani, Massimiliano & Cook, Sarah, 2023. "Air Pollution and Green Innovation," IZA Discussion Papers 16321, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Verma, Anuj & Chakraborty, Debarun & Verma, Meenakshi, 2023. "Barriers of food delivery applications: A perspective from innovation resistance theory using mixed method," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nathum:v:5:y:2021:i:2:d:10.1038_s41562-020-00961-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.