Faculty of Economics, Department of Marketing, Technical University of Liberec, Liberec, Czech Republic.
PLoS One. 2024 Mar 21;19(3):e0300707. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0300707. eCollection 2024.
The circular economy is a way of eliminating the shortage of raw materials that Europe is currently facing. However, it is necessary to explicitly identify the problems that prevent greater involvement in the CE. This article is focused on consumers and how they treat discarded or non-functional items. The aim was to fill the research gap, i.e. to compile a suitable CE model and define a methodology that would ensure the efficient disposal of non-functional or unsuitable items by consumers. An original methodology was drawn up to conduct the representative research, designed to lead to the practical application of the proposed CE model. The research explored how consumers treat non-functional or unsuitable items, the costs they incur in discarding, renovating, reusing, and recycling such items, and the alternative costs of unsorted municipal waste. After the data had been implemented into the model the circular economy was proven to have an economic benefit for the national economy in all groups. However, the economic disadvantage for consumers was also calculated, where the cost of involvement in the CE is higher than the cost of unsorted municipal waste. This means that people are motivated to play a part in the CE more by their own responsible approach to life, or social pressure from those around them. Based on this research it may be said that economic aspects are one reason that consumers tend to be reluctant to get more involved in the CE. Unless there is a significant rise in the cost of municipal waste that would motivate consumers to move towards the CE for financial reasons, in order to support the CE consumers need to be better stimulated, educated and informed as much as possible through the media.
循环经济是消除欧洲当前面临的原材料短缺的一种方式。然而，有必要明确指出阻碍更多参与循环经济的问题。本文主要关注消费者以及他们如何处理废弃或功能失调的物品。目的是填补研究空白，即编制合适的循环经济模型并定义一种方法，以确保消费者高效处理功能失调或不适用的物品。本文制定了一项原创方法来进行代表性研究，旨在将提出的循环经济模型付诸实践。该研究探讨了消费者如何处理功能失调或不适用的物品，他们在丢弃、翻新、再利用和回收此类物品时所产生的成本，以及未分类的城市废物的替代成本。在将数据实施到模型中后，证明循环经济在所有群体中对国民经济都具有经济效益。然而，也计算了消费者的经济劣势，即参与循环经济的成本高于未分类的城市废物。这意味着人们参与循环经济的动力更多地来自于他们对生活的负责任态度，或者来自周围人的社会压力。基于这项研究，可以说经济方面是消费者不愿意更多地参与循环经济的原因之一。除非城市废物的成本显著上升，促使消费者出于经济原因转向循环经济，否则为了支持循环经济，需要尽可能通过媒体对消费者进行更多的激励、教育和信息宣传。
