Disparity of Willingness-to-Pay and Ought-to-Pay for Construction Waste in Hong Kong: A Conceptual Model

There is an urgency to deal with the looming waste crisis, and ultimately to make Hong Kong a self-sustained city. Amongst many measures, a construction waste disposal charging schemes (CWDCS), espoused by the ‘polluter pays principle’, is often deemed as a very effective public policy not only to reduce waste but also to further reuse and recycle waste materials. In a nutshell, a waste disposal fee is devised to impose a levy on those who dispose of their construction waste into public landfills. There are two important research directions for exploring the charging price: one is willingness-to-pay (WTP) and the other is ought-to-pay (OTP). WTP, as a tool developed by the environmental economist, aims to identify the construction stakeholders’ maximum willingness to pay (WTP) for CWDCS. The result of WTP demonstrates the maximum subjective charging price for CWDCS. Meanwhile, OTP is the price level for realizing the effectiveness of CWDCS, which is determined by different decision rules. The outcome from OTP shows the minimum objective charging price to be set if the government is to achieve a certain goal in CWM, i.e. to maximize the potential of reduce, reuse, and recycle, or to deplete the landfills slower. However, the two methods were usually employed separately and few studies have investigated the disparity of WTP and OTP for a specific city. In order to rationalize the development of the CWDCS, these two important concepts must be better understood by contextualizing them in the particular socio-economic background for CWM in Hong Kong. This study aims to develop a conceptual model to investigate the disparity of WTP and OTP for C&D waste in Hong Kong. The logic and operation process of the conceptual model would be introduced. The conceptual model is helpful to guide data collection and data processing. The result from the conceptual model is helpful to improve the CWDCS in Hong Kong.