Sustainable Development of Rural Human Settlements in the Information Age: Can Internet Use Drive Farmers to Participate in Garbage Classification?

Abstract

Garbage classification is significant to alleviate the pressure of household waste management in rural areas and promote green development. Based on the micro survey data of 2228 households in rural areas of Jiangsu Province, this paper discusses the impact of internet use on the garbage classification’s willingness and behavior based on the planned behavior theory. The results show that: (1) There is a deviation between willingness and behavior. Ninety percent of the surveyed farmers were willing to do garbage classification, but the garbage classification rate was only 53%. (2) Internet use has a positive effect on the willingness and behavior of farmers to classify garbage, and it can promote the willingness to change behavior and reduce the deviation between willingness and behavior. Specifically, internet use increased by 1 unit, the probability of farmers having neither willingness nor behavior, having both willingness and behavior, and only having willingness but not having the behavior decreased by 5.4%, increased by 13%, and decreased by 7.5%, respectively. (3) Further analysis according to different internet access methods shows that mobile internet access and mixed internet access can have a positive impact on farmers’ willingness and behavior in relation to garbage classification, while computer internet access has no significant impact on farmers’ willingness and behavior in relation to garbage classification. (4) Internet use can enhance farmers’ willingness and behavior in relation to garbage classification by improving their knowledge, behavioral, and environmental cognition. Specifically, the mediating effects of knowledge, behavioral, and environmental cognition on willingness were 71.48%, 21.72%, and 40.49%, respectively, and the mediating effects on behavior were 89.47%, 8.89%, and 18.81%, respectively. Based on this, this paper puts forward the policy recommendations of strengthening the hardware and software construction of the internet, adopting diversified propaganda methods of garbage classification, and improving the social supervision and restraint mechanism.