Exploring the residents’ intention to separate MSW in Beijing and understanding the reasons: An explanation by extended VBN theory

Abstract

Positioned as an international metropolis, how to improve residents’ intentions to separate MSW (Municipal Solid Waste) is a very urgent issue for Beijing to be sustainable since MSW separation is regarded as an effective way to reduce MSW and thus protect the environment. In this research the different kinds of residents’ intentions to separate MSW were researched and the extended VBN theory with green trust is used to explain them. We divided the intentions into three levels, namely conscious intentions, promise-based intentions and action-based intentions, which are designed to understand how important is MSW separated collection to increase the residents’ MSW separation intentions and at what level of trust they have toward the MSW collection companies, including both public and private MSW collection companies. A survey covering the intentions and all the necessary items for building the extended VBN models was designed. Total 341 valid questionnaires were collected and after doing all the necessary analysis we found there are a group of residents indicate they will separate the MSW consciously and a promised MSW separate collection program can obviously increase the residents’ intentions to separate MSW, many of them trust the MSW collection companies’ promises and they don’t need the real actions to verify. Although residents prefer to trust the public MSW collection companies than the private companies, the difference is not very obvious. The full extended VBN theory can only successfully explain the residents’ conscious intentions to separate MSW which means residents have higher Bio value are more likely to separate MSW consciously. For the promise-based intentions and action-based intentions, only parts of the extended VBN theory can explain them, and the effect size is not very big, there are other factors play a much bigger role.