An application of theory of planned behaviour in predicting paper boxes returning intention among university student in China

Online shopping has been trending and has developed dramatically due to the advent of technology, especially in China. In 2018, the volume of cargo express from all express service enterprises in China totalled 50.71 billion units, an increase of 26.6% over the previous year. Meanwhile, 481 million units increased 51.5%, in Guangxi, China. With the growth of express delivery business, the derived express packaging garbage also grew. However, the actual recovery rate of paper-boxes (cardboard) was less than 10%. Thus, this study aimed to examine the psychological factors that can
influence the intention of recycling paper-boxes among the university students in Guangxi, China, by extending the Theory of Planned Behaviour with predictor awareness. The consideration of adding the extended predictor awareness is based on the acknowledgement of returning paper boxes as recycling action under the context of the Chinese culture of shyness. This study conducted a survey using a questionnaire which was constructed based on the underpinning of TPB. A total of 411 bachelor degree students from public universities in Guangxi, China, participated in this study. To find out the relationships among the psychological factors and recycling intention, correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis were conducted using SPSS. The results of the analysis indicate that there are positive significances between all the independent variables (attitude, subjective norm, perceived behaviour control and awareness) and the dependent variable (recycling intention to return paper boxes). This study also provides valuable insight on the awareness that the operator collecting the used paper-boxes from express delivery can affect the intention to recycle, where universities are capable of increasing the awareness among university students. The government, as a policy-maker, can obtain understanding through this study. In future, more studies in the context of Chinese culture should be conducted by getting deeper insights of this model