Recycling and consumption in Germany and Japan: a case of toilet paper

This paper compares the recycling attitudes of consumers in Germany and Jap an, based on our nationwide questionnaires. We analyzed consumption behavio r as well as recycling behavior in narrow sense, because it is important to study the former to see how the supply of recycled materials is balanced w ith the demand, particularly in Japan which exports little recycled materia ls. Toilet paper was adopted as a specific good for study, because consumer s have options of buying virgin products and recycled products. It was foun d that German households pay for waste collection specifically and have hig her recycling rates than Japanese households. On the other hand, similar fi gures in German and Japanese consumers were observed with regard to consump tion of recycled products. Their purchasing criteria and preference on virg in and recycled products of toilet paper were examined by self-report and b lind test with 2 x 2 experimental design for toilet paper (German versus Ja panese, virgin versus recycled). Blind test showed that people prefer domes tic and virgin products in both countries. Half of respondents rating virgi n products guessed that the products contained recycled material. For Japan ese, the material of the sample toilet paper, made from virgin pulp, seems to be a more determining factor than the nationality of products, i.e, made in Japan. On the other hand, for Germans, the domestic nature seems to be a more dominant factor than the material, i.e. made from virgin material. C anonical discriminant analysis in conjunction with logistic regression base d on self-reporting data detected the characters 'multiplied', 'appearance' and 'brand' as major factors making the difference in preference between t he two countries. The possible reasons causing the similarity and dissimila rity between the two countries are discussed with reference to the backgrou nd history. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.