Farmers' participation into the recovery of waste agricultural plastic film: An application of the Theory of Planned Behavior

This study aims to address the lack of relevant researches in the field of waste recycling using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). A village-scale social survey was conducted to investigate the degree of farmers' participation in a waste plastic film program, i.e. Old for New in northwest China. The program required farmers to recycle plastic film residues in exchange for new films. Survey results showed that 67.5% of farmers accepted the program, yet only 14.5% of them actually participated. Logistic regression analysis was used to analyze questionnaire data and identify the factors that significantly affected farmers' recycling behavior. Principal component and weight analysis further showed that farmers' participation was mainly influenced by their attitudes (p < 0.01), with a relative weight (RW) of 46.3%. Yet, subjective norms (p < 0.1) and perceived behavior control (p < 0.1) had less effect on the degree of participation, and their RWs were 4.2% and 4.1% only, respectively. Moreover, the RW of plastic film usage characteristics and household characteristics reached up to 13.2% and 6.4%, respectively. Interestingly, environmental awareness (13 = 0.083) and compulsory environmental education (13 = 0.130) as surface factors strongly affected the farmers' adoption and response, with the RW of 25.7%. As such, the extended TPB model was established to analyze the participation behavior of farmers for stronger explanatory power. This study highlighted a promising strategy based on TPB for waste plastic film recycling and similar environmental management practices.

Automated summary

This study addresses the lack of research on waste recycling using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). A social survey was conducted to investigate farmers' participation in a waste plastic film recycling program in northwest China. The survey results showed that although 67.5% of farmers accepted the program, only 14.5% actually participated. Attitudes significantly influenced farmers' participation, while subjective norms and perceived behavior control had less effect. The study highlights the potential of TPB for waste plastic film recycling and environmental management practices.