The empirical research on the consumers' willingness to participate in E-waste recycling with a points reward system

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1 Available online at ScienceDirect Energy Procedia 104 (2016 ) CUE2016-Applied Energy Symposium and Forum 2016: Low carbon cities & urban energy systems The empirical research on the consumers' willingness to participate in E-waste recycling with a points reward system Abstract Hua Zhong*, Li Huang School of Management and Economics, Beijing Insitite of Technology, Beijing , China In this paper, by introducing membership points reward system (PRS) to the E-waste recycling management systems, the E-waste recycling PRS is proposed. Based on the theory of planned behavior and the expectancy theory, a theoretical mode about the consumers participation in formal E-waste recycling is established, using a points reward incentive system. The consumers willingness to participate and level of acceptance are investigated through a questionnaire survey, and the feasibility of the new recycling system is evaluated as well. Based upon the questionnaire survey, the factors influencing the consumers willingness to participate in formal recycling channels with a points reward incentive system are analyzed. The results show that there is a significant correlation between the influence of a willingness to participate in formal E-waste recycling and participating expectancy, subjective attitude, objective environment, and few special consumer characteristics Published The Authors. by Elsevier Published Ltd. This by is Elsevier an open Ltd. access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of CUE Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Applied Energy Symposium and Forum, CUE2016: Low carbon cities and urban energy systems. Keywords: Consumer; E-waste; WEEE; Recycling willingness; Points reward system (PRS) 1. Introduction With the rapid development of industry in China in the past several decades, production and consumption of home appliances and personal electrical and electronic equipments have risen very quickly. At the same time, the lifespan of this kind of products is becoming shorter, resulting in a huge volume of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), i.e., E-waste. It is generally known that E- waste contains a lot of non-decomposable toxic metals and hazardous chemicals, which will seriously pollute the environment and very likely lead to many human health issues [1]. Moreover, e-waste contains precious and special metals, including gold, silver and other valuable materials, such as organics/plastics, glass, ceramics and so on [2]. Therefore, the recycling of E-waste not only plays an important role on environmental protection, recycling economy and energy-saving, but also contains a huge potential of * Corresponding author. Tel.: , address: zhonghua@bit.edu.cn Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Applied Energy Symposium and Forum, CUE2016: Low carbon cities and urban energy systems. doi: /j.egypro

2 476 Hua Zhong and Li Huang / Energy Procedia 104 ( 2016 ) carbon emission reduction, which is an indispensable part of low-carbon eco-city development. Due to the tremendous volume of E-waste in China, the situation for recycling is grim. Even so, only a very small amount of E-waste is recycled in environment-friendly ways [3]. Studies have shown that the bottleneck of China's E-waste recycling is the weak degree of consumer participation [4]. In order to further improve the enthusiasm of the public to participate in environmental recycling, a new E-waste recycling system with the membership PRS is being proposed in this paper. As a means of marketing to improve customer loyalty, membership PRS has been successfully applied in various fields, such as airlines, commerce, and the service industry [5]. This new recycling system can not only effectively improve the formal recycling rate, but also help to cultivate consumers long-term environmental habits. Moreover, the recycling system can provide recommendations for the government to improve the relevant regulations and policies. 2. Research model and hypotheses In the domain of customer praxeology, the most classical theory is Ajzen's theory of planned behavior (TPB) [6], which has been widely used in the analysis of consumer behaviors and influencing factors [7-9]. Because the use of member PRS (as a motivational method) has not yet been applied to the E-waste recycling system in fact, this paper has the goal of analyzing the impacts of a member PRS on consumers participation in formal recycling. Above all, a theoretical model based on TPB and expectation theory [10] is established to research consumers willingness to participate in this new E-waste recycling system, as shown in Fig. 1. Fig. 1. The theoretical model based on TPB and expectation theory Six hypotheses are given as follows: H1: Participation expectation significantly affects consumers willingness to participate in E-waste recycling with the points reward incentive system. H2: Participation valence significantly affects their willingness to participate in E-waste recycling with the points reward incentive system. H3: Consumers subjective attitudes significantly affect their willingness to participate in a formal E- waste recycling system. H4: Objective recycling circumstances significantly affect consumers' willingness to participate in a formal E-waste recycling system. H5: Consumer characteristics (age, gender, education, income, etc.) significantly affect their willingness to participate in a formal E-waste recycling system. H6: Consumers willingness to participate in a formal recycling system significantly affects their willingness to participate in E-waste recycling with a points reward incentive system.

3 Hua Zhong and Li Huang / Energy Procedia 104 ( 2016 ) Empirical analysis 3.1. Overview of statistical data Based on the above-mentioned theoretical model, the consumers participation willingness and acceptance level were investigated by a questionnaire survey. A total of 800 questionnaires were sent out through network and in-site survey, with 662 valid surveys being sent back, so the ratio of valid questionnaires is 82.75%. All data were processed by SPSS 18.0, and linear correlation and principal factor analysis (PFA) were used for analysis. From this, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) is (>0.7), and the significance of Bartlett's Test of Sphericity is 0.00 (<0.05). The questionnaire results showed that 92.1% of the consumers are willing or very willing to participate in E-waste recycling with a member PRS. In this questionnaire, each consumer was asked to rate their participation willingness on a scale of 0 to 100. A score of 0 was defined by our as "very reluctant", and a score of 100 was defined by our as "very satisfied". The results showed that the mean score was 87.7 with a standard deviation of , thus consumers acceptance of this new recycling system is quite high Impacts of consumers expectation In fact, member PRS has been ubiquitous in our life, such as in supermarket shopping, credit card rewards, airline miles rewards cards, and so on. Naturally, consumers attitudes towards other member PRS have a direct relationship with their expectation of participation in E-waste recycling with member PRS. Given this, a correlation analysis of consumers expectation to participate in member PRS and their willingness to participate in the E-waste recycling with PRS was made, as shown in Table 1. The result shows that consumers familiarity and participation for other member PRS in life are positively correlated with their willingness to participate in E-waste recycling with PRS. That is, consumers expectations significantly affect the participation willingness, so the assumption H1 is confirmed. Table 1. Correlation matrix of willingness in E-waste recycling PRS and expectation of participation in member PRS Items in the Scale Do you know member PRS? 1 2 Are you willing to participate in member PRS? 0.483** 1 3 Do you care about your membership points? 0.449** 0.605** 1 4 Willing to participate in E-waste recycling with PRS 0.340** 0.507** 0.418** 1 **indicated the significant level <0.01 (Two-Tailed Test) Using SPSS software for descriptive statistical analysis of consumers expectation, the mean of value that represents participation willingness is 1.66 (1- very willing, 5- very reluctant ), indicating that consumers are quite willing to participate in the E-waste recycling with PRS. Therefore, it can be considered that consumers have enough high expectations Impacts of consumers valence Compared to informal recycling, in which consumers sell electronic waste to itinerant traders or informal recycling organizations, consumers under the E-waste recycling with PRS can get not only a reasonable recovery price, but can also be rewarded with extra environmental points. These environmental reward points obtained can be used to exchange some specified product or service, and

4 478 Hua Zhong and Li Huang / Energy Procedia 104 ( 2016 ) thus is a kind of increase of the consumers recycling bonus. More important than all of that, they are participating in formal E-waste recycling and environmental protection. According to the relevance analysis of consumers valence and participation willingness, there is strong positive correlation between them, as shown in Table 2. Therefore, the assumption H2 is confirmed. Table 2. Correlation matrix of consumers valence and willingness to participate in E-waste PRS Items in the Scale Under E-waste recycling with PRS, I care about the reward points. 1 2 Under E-waste recycling with PRS, I care about the obtainable products and services through point redemption. 3 Under E-waste recycling with PRS, I attached great importance to participating in formal E-waste recycling. 4 Under E-waste recycling with PRS, I pay attention to enhance my environmental image ** ** 0.470** ** 0.385** 0.552** 1 5 Willing to participate in E-waste recycling with PRS 0.262** 0.321** 0.348** 0.258** 1 According to the descriptive statistical analysis of consumers valence, the mean of value that represents participation willingness is (1- very willing, 5- very reluctant ), indicating that consumers are quite willing to participate in the E-waste recycling with PRS. Therefore, it can be considered that consumers have enough expectations Impacts of the subjective and objective factors Fourteen factors which might influence consumer involvement in the waste recycling system were investigated in the questionnaire. Four principal component factors (PCF) were extracted by Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and the rotated component matrix is shown in Table 3. All the 4 main factors are respectively defined as subjective and objective: environmental attitudes and norms (X1), recycling needs and motivations (X2), recycling circumstances (Y1), and recycling conditions (Y2). Among them, X1 and X2 represent consumers subjective factors to participate in E-waste recycling system, and Y1 and Y2 represent consumers objective factors. Their cumulative contribution rate to total variation accounted for %, so the main factors covered most of information from the fourteen factors. A correlation analysis of the four main factors and consumers willingness to participate in formal E- waste recycling was carried out, with results shown in Table 4. It is easy to discern that the subjective factors (represented by X1 and X2) are significantly and positively correlated with consumers willingness to participate in formal E-waste recycling, thus the assumption H3 is proved tenable. For the objective factors, it seemed that only Y2 is significantly and negatively correlated with consumers willingness to participate in formal E-waste recycling, indicating that consumers recycling condition is very bad currently and can become an obstacle to their participation in formal E-waste recycling. The impact of Y1 is not significant, so the influence of the Y1 internal factors on consumers participation in E-waste recycling should be analyzed differently, including laws and regulations related to E-waste recycling, media publicity of formal E-waste recycling, and the participation of other people. Further correlation analysis reveals that laws and regulations enacted by the government that are not clear have a significantly negative impact on consumers willingness to participate in formal E-waste recycling. Overall, the hypothesis H4 is basically confirmed.

5 Hua Zhong and Li Huang / Energy Procedia 104 ( 2016 ) Table 3. Rotated component matrix for the subjective factors and objective factors of participating in E-waste recycling system Component Items in the Scale X1 X2 Y1 Y2 The heavy metals and informal recycling of E-waste will pollute the environment Recycle of E-waste can reduce environmental pollution and resource consumption I would like to contribute to reducing the harm of E-waste Participate in E-waste recycling should be voluntary I support the government to carry out formal recycling for waste electrical appliances Participate in E-waste recycling should get a certain return I really care about the recycling prices of waste electrical appliances Door-to-door service for E-waste recycling is very important to me I really care about whether the door-to-door service for E-waste recycling is free or not The government did not issue clear laws and regulations related to E-waste recycling No media propagandize relevant information of formal E-waste recycling All people around me do not participate in formal E-waste recycling There are no professional agencies or stations nearby for E-waste recycling Recycling agencies do not provide door-to-door service for E-waste recycling Eigenvalue Contribution rate Cronbach's alpha Table 4. The correlation matrix of willingness in formal E-waste and main factors (X1, X2, Y1 and Y2) Items in the Scale X1 X2 Y1 Y2 Willing to participate in formal E-waste recycling 0.403** 0.236** ** 3.5. Impacts of consumer characteristics Table 5. The variance analysis: Consumer s characteristics and willingness to formal E-waste recycling Consumers characteristics F Sig. Consumers characteristics F Sig. Gender Monthly income Age * Occupation ** Education background * significant level <0.05 (Two-Tailed Test). According to variance analysis of consumer demographics, as shown in Table 5, neither gender, education, nor monthly income of consumers have any significant influence on the willingness to participate in the formal E-waste recycling, although the influence of age and occupation are significant (sig<0.05). In particular, the participation willingness of consumers aged 18 to 20 is higher than other groups. In terms of occupation, the participation willingness of consumers working in state-run

6 480 Hua Zhong and Li Huang / Energy Procedia 104 ( 2016 ) enterprises is the highest, and consumers engaged in Agriculture & Farming are significantly lower than the other groups. Thus it can be seen that the assumption H5 is partly confirmed Impacts of consumers willingness to participate in formal E-waste recycling system According to the correlation analysis, consumers willingness to participate in formal E-waste recycling system is significantly and positively correlated with the willingness to participate in E-waste recycling with PRS, with a value of 0.248, thus the assumption H6 is fully confirmed. 4. Conclusion In this paper, the membership PRS is introduced into the E-waste recycling system, designed to encourage more consumers to participate in formal E-waste recycling. A theoretical model based on TPB and expectation theory is established to research consumers willingness to participate in this new E-waste recycling system, and all research hypotheses are proved to be tenable. Through principal factor analysis and correlation analysis, significant correlations are found between the influence of participation willingness in formal recycling and consumers expectancy, subjective attitude, objective environment, and some special consumer characteristics. The analysis results show that the proposed PRS can effectively encourage consumers, and help to improve China's electronic waste recycling management system. Acknowledgements This paper was supported by the Doctoral Fund of Ministry of Education of China ( ). This support is gratefully acknowledged. The authors would also like to acknowledge the contributions of anonymous referees whose comments have significantly improved the paper. References [1] Liu X, Tanaka M, Matsui Y. Electrical and electronic waste management in China: progress and the barriers to overcome. Waste Management & Research, 2006, 24(1): [2] Tian Q, Li Y, Deng D, et al. Progress of Precious Metal Recovery from Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment. Precious Metals, 2015, 1: 020. [3] Yang J, Lu B, Xu C. WEEE flow and mitigating measures in China. Waste Management, 2008, 28(9): [4] Lan Y. A study on consumer participation and take-back models of waste household electronic appliance management. Dalian University of Technolog, [5] Dick AS, Basu K. Customer loyalty: toward an integrated conceptual framework. Journal of the academy of marketing science, 1994, 22(2): [6] Ajzen I. From intentions to actions: A theory of planned behavior. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, [7] Lan Y, Zhu QH. The Empirical Study on Influential Factors of Consumers Participation Intention in the Tack-back Management of Waste Household Electronic Appliances. Ecological Economy, 2009, 213(7): [8] Yu FM, Duan XM, Liang HJ. An Empirical Research on Recycling Behavior of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment and its Influence Factor[J]. China Environmental Science, 2011, 31(12): [9] Liu YQ, Guo Q, Liu YH. An Empirical Analysis on the Affecting Factors for Recycling of Waste Household Appliances of the Consumer. Logistics Sci-Tech, 2013, 8: [10] Nie W, Huang X, Huang JJ, Zhang XJ. Discussion of Urban Residential Area Garbage Sorting and Reclamation System Based on Incentive Theory. Logistics Technology, 2013, 32(11):