Green disposal practice intention among millennial households: A study of Perak / Dhanabalan Sandra Segaran

• Main Author: Dhanabalan Sandra , Segaran
• Format: Thesis
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: H Social Sciences (General); HC Economic History and Conditions
• Online Access: http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/15102/1/Dhanabalan.pdf; http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/15102/2/Dhanabalan_Sandra.pdf; http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/15102/
• Institution: Universiti Malaya

Malaysia’s waste generation has drastically increased due to rapid urbanisation caused by economic and population growth. Besides, the increased generation of municipal waste by households in Malaysia has exhausted landfills well before their maturity period. This study seeks to identify the factors that could motivate millennial households to engage in green disposal practices. Using an extended version of the theory of planned behaviour, this study incorporates institutional motivations (IM), green disposal technology (GDT) and disposal awareness (DA) as predictors that may influence the intention of millennials to adopt green disposal practices. In addition, the study examines the perceived behavioural control (PBC) capacity to strengthen the interaction between attitude (ATT) and subjective norms (SN) towards intention. Also, the study evaluates the indirect influence of IM using positive ATT and green disposal technology through PBC. Using a sample of 671 responses collected from Perak’s urban and rural millennial households, the study deploys the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) to test fourteen hypotheses: one, ATT positively influencing intention; two, SN positively influencing intention; three, PBC positively influencing intention; four, PBC moderating the relationship between ATT and intention; five, PBC moderating the relationship between SN and intention; six, DA positively influencing intention; seven, IM positively influencing intention; eight, formal institutions positively influencing intention; nine, informal institutions positively influencing intention; ten, IM indirectly influencing intention via positive ATT; eleven, GDT positively influencing intention; twelve, reverse vending machine positively influencing intention; thirteen, mobile application positively influencing intention; and finally, fourteen, IM indirectly influencing intention via PBC. The results support all the hypotheses with the expected signs, except for formal institutions and mobile application support. Also, all supported hypotheses are statistically highly significant, suggesting that it is highly possible to change millennials’ intention towards adopting green disposal practices. Furthermore, PBC had the highest coefficient value, demonstrating its strong ability to motivate millennials to participate in green disposal activities. However, PBC showed a negative moderating effect on the relationship between ATT and SN. Thus, the moderating impact of PBC significantly strengthened the interactions of ATT x PBC and SN x PBC on intention when PBC was at a low level. Additionally, the total effect coefficient value (combination of direct and indirect effects) of green disposal technology and institutional motivations also had a highly significant impact on improving green disposal practices. Moreover, the total effect of mediation of institutional motivations through the influence of positive ATT and green disposal technology through the influence of PBC showed a more comprehensive impact on millennials’ intention than their direct or indirect impact. Therefore, the overall findings of the thesis lead to the conclusion that PBC (convenience and skills), institutional motivations, green disposal technology, and awareness about improper disposal are capable of changing millennials’ behaviour to participate in green disposal activities. Such a shift in millennials’ behaviour can potentially prevent more than 35% of recoverable municipal waste from landing in landfills.