INTERNAL INFLUENCES ON RESIDENTS' WASTE CLASSIFICATION BEHAVIOUR: AN EXPERIMENT STUDY IN CHINA

Abstract

Due to the increasing waste generated over the years in Hangzhou, the government urged the need to address this major problem with the intention of implementing effective household waste programs. Hence, the aim of this study is to investigate the key determinants influencing household waste classification behaviour by applying the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) model from social psychology. The study participants for this study were households of different communities in JB street of Hangzhou. A questionnaire based on the different TPB constructs such as attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control and perceived moral obligation, external factors and demographic characteristics was designed to be assessed on. Among the 1575 questionnaires posted out, 631 valid and completed questionnaires were obtained. The Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) analysis was used for this study in order to evaluate the effectiveness of each construct. The analysis results have shown that past behaviour is the most significant construct to predict individual’s intention and behaviour towards household waste classification. A comparison done among the demographic characteristics also showed that low income and younger age groups have a higher intention that they will behave accordingly to their intentions. The strengths and limitations of this study were then explained for possible future research.