Research on Environmental Issue and Sustainable Consumption of Online Takeout Food—Practice and Enlightenment Based on China’s Meituan

Meiwen Guo, Liang Wu, Jianping Peng and Chun-Hung Chiu
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Meiwen Guo: School of Management, Guangzhou Xinhua University, Guangzhou 510520, China
Liang Wu: School of Management, Guangzhou Xinhua University, Guangzhou 510520, China
Jianping Peng: School of Business, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
Chun-Hung Chiu: School of Business, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 12, 1-24

Abstract: In today’s society, consumers’ food needs can be satisfied by catering e-commerce platforms. However, the plastic pollution of tableware and packaging caused by a large number of catering orders every day has always been an unsolved environmental problem. (1) Background: At present, China’s three largest catering platforms, Meituan, Eleme and Baidu, receive 20 million takeout orders daily and consume about 60 million plastic products. Plastic pollution will have a sustained impact on the environment. (2) Methods: In this study, we use literature research and case analysis. We use Meituan’s takeout food as an example. We studied the takeout business growth, status of online takeout in the treatment of plastic packaging, harm to environment, humans and animals, as well as specific solutions. (3) Results: There are four main reasons which contribute to the plastic packaging pollution (i.e., high recycling cost, difficulty to deal with mixed plastic packaging, low effectiveness of collecting plastic packing, and immature technology and treatment to incinerate and landfill catering plastic waste). (4) Conclusion: Our findings suggest that regulators, takeout platforms and consumers, which have corresponding responsibilities in the environmental protection consumption of online food, are supposed to work together to get rid of the online takeout pollution for achieving sustainable consumption. Not only is government legislation needed to improve the waste management system and encourage the exploration of new intelligent waste classification tools, but platforms, businesses and users should enhance the environmental awareness of online takeout packaging pollution as well. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are also discussed.

Keywords: online takeout; plastic packaging; environment pollution; catering e-commerce platform; sustainable consumption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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