Mechanism of Undergraduate Students’ Waste Separation Behavior in the Environmentally Friendly Higher Education Mega Center of Guangzhou

Abstract

The volume of waste produced by aspects of both industrial life and daily life has increased in the past few years in conjunction with the rapidly growing economy in China. In urban areas, citizens consume more resources and produce much waste, which pollutes the environment. Many cities have proposed numerous regulations for waste separation to help build environmentally friendly cities. Plenty of studies tried to reveal the mechanism of residents' waste separation behavior in different theoretical perspectives but were unable to clarify the effect of waste separation factors in university. Moreover, the response and performance of undergraduate students after the waste separation regulations are proposed and are not well discussed. To clarify the mechanism of waste separation behavior in campus and evaluate the response and performance, in this study, a questionnaire is used to sample undergraduate students from the Higher Education Mega Center in Guangzhou. With the use of SPSS 23.0, this study conducts an empirical analysis; the results of which show that (1) environmental awareness and personal responsibility have a significant positive impact on behavior attitude; (2) convenience and economic cost have a significant positive impact on perceived behavior control; (3) intention has a partial mediating role between behavior attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavior control; and (4) habits directly affect behavior and regulate the relationship between intention and behavior. The results will provide some meaningful implications for the government.