Engagement factors for household waste sorting in Ecuador: Improving perceived convenience and environmental attitudes enhances waste sorting capacity

Abstract

This study contributes to developing a set of engagement factors to address waste mishandling and enhances waste sorting intention in households. Prior studies do not specify a set of factors to mobilize and empower households toward better waste sorting engagement. In addition, in Ecuador, waste separation rates are low, and household waste sorting reduces the separation efforts at collection facilities to increase the recycling efficiency for sustainable plastic waste management strategies. This study adopted the theory of planned behavior to understand waste sorting engagement factors, and the factors are described in qualitative information and linguistic preferences. Hence, this study applied the fuzzy Delphi method to screen out the less important attributes and fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory to visualize the interrelationships among attributes. This study finds that waste sorting capacity is driven by environmental attitudes, perceived convenience, social norms and economic drivers. The results also indicated that households’ environmental attitudes, perceived convenience and economic drivers are causal factors that drive waste sorting engagement. For practitioners, separation knowledge, willingness to participate, pro-environmental decisions, and social responsibility arrangements are the driving criteria for improving waste sorting engagement and reducing and eliminating pollution. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.