Psychological driving forces behind households’ behaviors toward municipal organic waste separation at source in Vietnam: a structural equation modeling approach

Most recent municipal organic waste-separation at source (MOW-SAS) programs that have been introduced in developing countries remain pilot programs, but have not fully developed into sustainable municipal solid-waste management strategies. The city of Hoi An, Vietnam, implemented a mandatory MOW-SAS...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of material cycles and waste management Vol. 19; no. 3; pp. 1052 - 1060
Main Authors Loan, Le Thi Thanh, Nomura, Hisako, Takahashi, Yoshifumi, Yabe, Mitsuyasu
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Tokyo Springer Japan 01.07.2017
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Behavior
Civil Engineering
Cooperation
Developing countries
Education
Engineering
Environmental Management
Garbage
Households
LDCs
Leadership
Local government
Mathematical models
Municipal solid waste
Organic wastes
Perception
Recommendations
Reliability
Separation
Solid waste management
Special Feature: Original Article
Structural equation modeling
Sustainability
Waste management
Waste Management/Waste Technology
Waste sorting
Vietnam
SEM
Mandatory program
Municipal organic waste
System trust
Moral norm
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Summary:Most recent municipal organic waste-separation at source (MOW-SAS) programs that have been introduced in developing countries remain pilot programs, but have not fully developed into sustainable municipal solid-waste management strategies. The city of Hoi An, Vietnam, implemented a mandatory MOW-SAS program in 2012. Using Structural Equation Modeling, this study investigates the psychological driving forces behind households’ behaviors toward the MOW-SAS program. This study finds that moral norm (moral perception of what is good or bad), attitude toward sorted waste, and situational factors (issues concerning physically sorting garbage, such as time, space, and lack of family cooperation) can significantly affect household behaviors toward MOW-SAS. It confirms the need for supplying frequent environmental educational campaigns and highlighting the benefits of MOW-SAS programs. Moreover, the study finds that households’ system trust in local authority concerning the MOW-SAS program is an important driving force behind the behavior. Therefore, recommendation is also made on the need to develop strong leadership in local authorities through improving: (1) reliability (ability to effectively treat sorted waste), (2) legitimacy (punitive measures for non-participants), and (3) effectiveness (dissemination of information about the benefits of MOW-SAS programs) for promoting MOW-SAS.
ISSN:1438-4957
1611-8227
DOI:10.1007/s10163-017-0587-3