Waste flow of wet wipes and decision-making mechanism for consumers’ discarding behaviors

Wet wipes have been widely used in consumers' daily lives, especially confronted with the COVID-19 pandemic. Most wet wipes contain plastic components, which cause salient plastic consumption and environmental pollution after their usage. In the current study, the discarding stage of wet wipes in China is investigated systematically. The waste flow of wet wipes is described in detail for the first time, based on the results of domestic waste composition field survey and 2461 consumer questionnaires. The decision-making mechanism for consumers’ wet wipes discarding behavior has been established, and the impacts of various factors have been quantified and analyzed by using structural equation modeling. Results show that waste wet wipes account for 0.2% of all domestic waste in China. Consumer behavior, which is determined by 12 influencing factors, will affect the flow of waste wet wipes substantially. All factors are divided into three categories, including “consumption habit”, “cost” and “incentive”. Among all factors, “time cost” is the most crucial one which indicates matching the convenient solid waste treatment infrastructure is an effective way to ameliorate environmental leakage. Popularizing the knowledge that wet wipes contain plastic through various ways such as printing the composition on packaging bags is a feasible approach. In order to mitigate the environmental impacts, a systematic solution integrating production, consumption and disposal processes of wet wipes is necessary.