Research on the Deposit Strategy of Modular Reusable Containers with a Carbon Tax Policy
For the past years,the conflict between industry development and environment contamination has become more prominent.The issue of environment has become a hot point all over the world.While pursuing economic development,various industries gradually put environmental protection on the agenda.Pollution from disposable plastic packaging is one of the major causes of environmental pollution,and the emergence of the reusable container(RC)provides a viable solution to alleviating this pollution.As one important category of RC,the modular reusable container(MRC)has been widely adopted in a variety of industries because of its good leak-proof and transport portability.MRC is composed of two or more sub-parts and each sub-part can function only when they are combined together,such as workbins in automobile industry,medical waste recycling bins in medical industry,as well as ceramic tableware in takeaway catering industry,etc.However,when MRC provides a better protection for the products in prevention of leakage of prod-ucts,it also increases the difficulty of MRC operation management for the MRC owner because of the complexity of its composition and brings the MRC owner a series of management problems.Against the background of takeaway catering industry,based on a carbon tax policy,this paper considers that suppliers deliver their products with MRC and recycle containers after customers remove or use them,and there exists a situation where different parts for MRC have different loss rates,that is to say,the whole MRC may not be entirely lost as a result.Two optimization models with and without MRC deposit are developed to obtain the optimal decisions(i.e.,the number of MRC per cycle,the amount of deposit with a deposit policy,and the purchase volume of MRC per cycle).This paper explores the effect of different deposit strategies on the supplier's MRC operations and carbon emissions,and analyzes the impacts of carbon emission coefficient and carbon tax on the supplier's optimal decisions and carbon emissions.Then,a numerical analysis in this paper is performed with the example of a takeaway catering company.The results show that,firstly,in order to obtain the best benefits,the supplier should either control the MRC loss rate at a low level and do not charge any MRC deposit,or keep the maximum market demand per unit time at a high level and charge a certain MRC deposit.When the MRC loss rate is higher,the profit of charging deposit will be larger,and when the maximum market demand per unit time is lower,the profit without MRC deposit will be larger.Besides,the supplier's carbon emissions can be reduced by using deposit strategy,thus charging deposit strategy is a good choice for supplier to adopt in the aspect of carbon emissions reduction.Mean-while,the supplier can reduce its number of MRC per cycle by charging a certain MRC deposit,or can reduce its purchase volume of MRC per cycle by not charging any MRC deposit.Finally,carbon emission factors and carbon taxes have opposite effects on supplier carbon emissions and the same effect on MRC deposit.That is,with an increase in carbon emission factors,the supplier's carbon emissions per unit of time gradually increase,and with an increase in carbon taxes,the supplier's carbon emissions per unit of time gradually decrease.With an increase in carbon emission factors for procurement or inspection cleaning and maintenance,the value of MRC deposit gradually increases,and with an increase in carbon taxes,the value of MRC deposit gradually increases as well.This paper considers the problem that the whole MRC may not be entirely lost,which is closer to real situation,and at the same time discusses carbon emissions,which is in line with the concept of green develop-ment.Thus,this paper can provide some valuable references for the efficient operation and management of MRC.
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