A Study of Supply Chain and Community’s Expectation for Starting a Green Container Business: Bo Phloi District, Kanchanaburi Province

Abstract

         Bo Phloi District is an important sugarcane growing area of Kanchanaburi province. The large amounts of sugarcane waste led to the idea of green container business. Sugarcane waste is a suitable natural material for green container producing. Two aims of this research were studying the availability of activities in the supply chain and expectations of Bo Phloi community towards the green container business, followed by the mixed method. It used in-depth interview and focus group to collect data from 120 selected samples. Then they were divided into groups according to activity in the supply chain. Research equipment were in-depth interview to study activities and a questionnaire to evaluate the level of expectations. The results show that:

        (1) The most popular green container was paper cup, but biodegradable snack tray was not yet available in community. The preparedness of this supply chain consisting of farmers, who collect and sell sugarcane residues (21.67%), suppliers of paper inputs and material forming machines (10%), agricultural machinery shops (2.50%), handicraft makers (1.67%), the mechanic technicians (29.17%), and container stores (8.33%), respectively. Sugar factories and local administrative organizations supported operations. The missing activities were paper producers and forming machine suppliers.

         (2) The highest expectation level of the community towards the green container business were boosting the local economy ( = 4.69), followed by environmental conservation, technological development, networking, preservation of wisdom, and social development were 4.20, 4.02, 3.84, 3.71, and 3.11, respectively.

         The local government can use the research result as a guideline to create the action plan for enhancing income and environment for sustainable community development.