The waste separation behaviour of primary and middle school students and its influencing factors: Evidence from Yingtan City, China

Abstract

Waste source separation requires effort from each individual citizen. As the important drivers of change and potential influencers of the future world, younger Chinese’s waste separation behaviour is crucial to the long-term successful implementation of China’s MSW separation policy. To explore the waste separation behaviour of younger Chinese and identify the factors that may influence their behaviour so as to better encourage younger generation of Chinese to practice waste sorting in their daily lives, a questionnaire survey of 579 primary and middle school (PMS) students aged between 6 and18 years old (y/o) was carried out in Yingtan City, Jiangxi Province, China. Binary logistic regression was adopted to explore the factors that might influence the respondents’ waste separation behaviour. The results indicate that more than half PMS students in Yingtan have participated in waste separation, and junior year students perform better in waste separation practice than their seniors. Students are found to have basic knowledge of MSW classification, but they are more familiar with recyclable waste and hazardous waste than non-recyclable waste. The analysis also highlights positive relationships between PMS students’ attitude to waste separation, their willingness to do it, their environmental education and their waste separation behaviour. The level of convenience of waste sorting facilities and influences from friends and families are also positively related to the students’ waste separation practice, but families have the strongest influence. The perception of a mandatory waste separation policy would demotivate students in terms of waste separation practice, while giving rewards is considered to be the most effective approach to encouraging waste separation. Finally, management strategies for improving PMS students’ waste separation behaviour are discussed and several recommendations for improvement are made.

Predictors of Pro-Environmental Behaviors in Adolescence: A Scoping Review

“…This can be explained by the reliance on the TPB or the VBN as the most popular conceptual frameworks in the set of reviewed studies (for more details, see the subsection "Conceptual Frameworks in Adolescence"). With a few exceptions, these four variables are positively related to PEB in adolescence [6,7,43,44,46,[48][49][50]52,53,[69][70][71]73,74,78,79,83,84,89]. Longitudinal studies also revealed that perceived behavioral control and intention for PEB predicted higher levels of PEB among adolescents [9,39].…”

“…Longitudinal studies also revealed that perceived behavioral control and intention for PEB predicted higher levels of PEB among adolescents [9,39]. Yet, other studies found no significant association between pro-environmental attitudes [3,13,37,38,75], knowledge about environmental issues [84,87], perceived behavioral control [10,51,74,75], and intention for PEB [10] and PEB in adolescence. In their longitudinal study, Ernst et al [10] even found that an increase in pro-environmental attitudes was related to a decrease in PEB in their adolescent sample.…”

“…The most documented correlate concerning adolescents' family is the adoption of PEB by parents (perceived by adolescents or reported by parents). For the most part, studies suggest that the more parents adopt PEB, the more adolescents will too [41,58,72,80,84]. Yet, Evans et al [37] found no link between parents' and adolescents' PEB.…”

Challenges and Strategies to Develop Pro Environment Behaviours Among Middle School Students: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Similarity with several studies: lack of awareness among middle school students due to lack of knowledge about the environment and its related issues (Kellberg et al 2023;Baierl et al 2021;Liang et al 2018), conserving water, protecting the ecosystem from pollution, and protecting the forest from fires (El Batri et al 2019) and climate change (Brumann et al 2022;Eze, 2020). School ( Liang et al 2022;Zhang et al 2023;Dela Peña et al 2018) and multiculturalism (List et al 2020) are two issues that affect pupils to have awareness. Increasing children's awareness in chaotic situations is important because, despite the challenges, schools as well as teachers may still help kids develop pro-environmental habits and behaviours (Liang et al 2022).…”

“…The instructional game challenges students to assess how a wellknown consumer good affects the environment. The reward program (Zhang et al 2023), green school (Cole & Altenburger, 2019) and green lifestyle (Eze, 2020) are appropriate strategies that can contribute to developing PEBs.…”