Urban Waste Composition Associated to Online Food Delivery in Bangkok, Thailand, with Emphasis on Plastic Waste Management

Growth of food online delivery to serve the modern life pattern of customer in urban. Plastic waste increased and had problems with waste management. The aim of this study is to investigate the urban waste composition related to online food delivery in Bangkok metropolitan, food delivery consumption behavior, and plastic waste generated from food delivery. Data from online food delivery customers were collected by online questionnaires from 385 participants. Proportion of plastic waste increased in municipal solid waste. Increase of order food delivery in online platforms about 76.6% of the total participants. The single-use plastic (SUP) generation related to online food delivery in household waste. Participants did not choose the green choices to decline the SUP when ordering food in platforms. These findings suggest reducing SUP from online food delivery, close-loop management requiring cooperation of producer-platform-customer-government. Extended producer responsibility (EPR) should apply for producers to make environmentally friendly products, online food delivery platform increase more incentive for merchants and customers to reduce SUP. Polluter-pay-principle (PPP) might be applied for customers. Government must adopt policy to ban SUP and design system for plastic waste management.