Predicting recycling intention in New York state: The impact of cognitive and social factors

Recycling has become an urgent environmental and economic issue in the United State since China's National Sword Policy. In this study, we connect the theory of planned behavior, environmental concern, recycling knowledge, and social capital to investigate recycling intention. Based on a representative sample of New York state residents (N = 1010) recruited through Ipsos Public Affairs using stratified random sampling, we employed hierarchical ordinary least squares regression and PROCESS macro to analyze the data. Survey results show that attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control are positively related to recycling intention. Subjective knowledge, rather than objective knowledge, influences recycling intention. Moreover, subjective knowledge influences recycling intention through attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control, while the indirect relationship from objective knowledge to recycling intention was not significant. Lastly, environmental concern and social capital influence recycling intention through attitude and subjective norms. These findings suggest that environmental communication messaging needs to attend to contextual factors such as community connectedness.