Study On The Public Acceptance Of Environmental Risk Of Waste Incinerators

With the rapid development of our country’s economy, and the increasing publicpercept of environmental protection in recent years, environmental conflict events dueto the construction of waste incinerators were spreading overall our country. In thesocial background of diversified interests, the conflict could not be resolved only relyon optimal engineering technology to tackle negative external effects, and expectingpublic through the moral and ethical discipline all by themselves. Therefore, study onfactors affecting public risk acceptance level of waste incinerators could haveimportant theoretical and politic significance, including:(1) to improve publicacceptance level of waste incinerators;(2) to alleviate the management policy;(3) toreduce the occurrence of such environmental conflict;(4) to promote the constructionof a harmonious society.Through the questionnaire investigation on the research object of residents livingthe waste incinerators nearby in three cities: Suzhou, Yancheng, Haian at Jiangsuprovince, several issues were mainly researched:(1) discussed the current situation ofpublic risk perception on waste incinerators;(2) revealed the main factors affectingpublic risk perception and acceptance level;(3) quantitative calculated index value ofpublic acceptable risk on waste incinerators;(4) analyzed the incineration riskamplification based on its social amplification framework;(5) put forward somemanagement countermeasures and suggestions for government. The main researchconclusions were as follows:(1) According to the descriptive analysis of the current situation of publicenvironmental risk acceptance level on waste incinerators, public acceptance levelwere generally low. Residents nearby were not satisfied for the policy management bygovernment and showed low level of trust on government and technical expert. Andthe stigmatized effect of waste incinerators were serious than expected.(2) Through the analysis of public risk factors characteristics perception on wasteincinerators, some risk factors were got both familiar and uncontrollable as: bad odor,air pollution, water pollution, affecting health of offspring and triggering malignantdiseases. Government should make effective management measures to control thoserisk factors.(3) Through the regression analysis of factors affecting public risk perception onwaste incinerators, these significant factors were got as: age, income per year,reducing crops yields, trusting level on government, impartiality of government management and stigmatized effect. Then the revised theory model of public riskperception on waste incinerators were conducted.(4) The significant factors affecting public acceptance level of waste incineratorsare as follows: residents’ cultural level, impartiality of governmental management, thelevel of trust on incineration operators, increasing safety of facilities and distance,then the revised conceptual model of public risk acceptance level on wasteincinerators were conducted.(5) The quantitative assessment system of public environmental risk acceptancelevel of waste incinerators were built and index value of public environmental riskacceptance level were quantitative calculated. It’s concluded that public acceptabledegree of waste incinerators was generally low.(6) Through establishing the social risk amplification framework of wasteincinerators, the amplification ways of incineration risk were explained and theeffective government strategy were put forward by simplifying the risk amplificationframework.