Interplay of consumer and municipality roles in developing e-waste separation behaviour: Moderating effects of objective knowledge

Abstract

Consumer e-waste separation involves sorting, dumping into recycling bins, transporting to waste centres, or finding e-waste storage spaces. The process needs careful handling because some e-waste may contain harmful toxic chemicals, bad for consumers/the environment. Despite the danger, inappropriate and inadequate e-waste handling is reported in some African countries. Therefore, the contributions of consumer objective knowledge and municipality support are needed in the process but rarely studied. Borrowing from two theories, this study examined how much consumers’ perceptions of ability and usefulness, low and high objective knowledge, and municipality support help/hinder perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE), e-waste separation willingness (WTS), and actual behaviour. The municipal support and two objective knowledge levels were also tested as moderators. Quantitative data was collected from 350 South-African consumers. Structural equation modelling results revealed that performance expectancy (PE) and perceived ease of use (PEU) significantly impacted PCE, which with PE and PEU, significantly drove WTS domestic e-waste, all at p < 0.01. WTS strongly impacted actual e-waste separation behaviour. Municipal support played negative roles on WTS and a significant but negative moderating role in the PCE- WTS relationship. Multigroup analyses revealed that at low levels of objective knowledge, the negative impact of municipality support on how WTS drove actual behaviour increased. At high levels of objective knowledge, the impact of PE on PCE increased. Thus, while objective knowledge of environmental issues played positive moderating roles in two instances, municipal support was a hindrance. Practical implications are provided for policymakers, social marketers, and municipal management dealing with waste management .