Jia Qian, Islam Md Sahidul, Hossain Md Shahadat, Li Fengting, Wang Ying
College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China.
UNEP-Tongji Institute of Environment for Sustainable Development (IESD), Shanghai, 200092, China.
Heliyon. 2023 Aug 3;9(8):e18921. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e18921. eCollection 2023 Aug.
Plastic waste is choking our planet, but the recycling rate is still universally low. Understanding factors affecting recycling behaviours can help address this pressing issue. Taking Dhaka as an example, this study explores the determinants of the intentions to recycle plastic waste. We employed the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and extended it with two additional variables: Moral Norms, and Perceived sufficiency of knowledge and policy support. Survey data of 577 were collected and analysed using PLS-SEM. The findings suggest attitude, perceived behavioural control, moral norms and subjective norms significantly impact recycling intention, among which moral norms (β = 0.148, p < 0.05) acts even more strongly than subjective norms (β = 0.12, p < 0.05). Moreover, low level perception of knowledge and policy support makes people perceive less control over recycling behaviour (β = 0.188, p < 0.05), but actually reinforce their recycling intention (β = -0.091, p < 0.1). This study enriches the theoretical discussion of TPB, and contributes to the efforts of encouraging plastic recycling in populated megacity of emerging economy.
塑料垃圾正在窒息我们的星球，但回收率普遍仍然很低。了解影响回收行为的因素有助于解决这一紧迫问题。以达卡为例，本研究探讨了塑料垃圾回收意愿的决定因素。我们运用了计划行为理论（TPB），并增加了两个变量对其进行扩展：道德规范以及对知识和政策支持的感知充分性。收集了577份调查数据，并使用偏最小二乘结构方程模型（PLS-SEM）进行分析。研究结果表明，态度、感知行为控制、道德规范和主观规范对回收意愿有显著影响，其中道德规范（β = 0.148，p < 0.05）的影响甚至比主观规范（β = 0.12，p < 0.05）更强。此外，对知识和政策支持的低水平感知使人们对回收行为的控制感降低（β = 0.188，p < 0.05），但实际上增强了他们的回收意愿（β = -0.091，p < 0.1）。本研究丰富了计划行为理论的理论探讨，并为新兴经济体人口密集的大城市鼓励塑料回收的努力做出了贡献。
