3. An Investigation and Analysis of the Recycling Behaviors of Consumers
Recycling activities of household waste medications are becoming more common, but the
results of these activities are not always satisfying. From the industry point of view, there are
several reasons why the medications recycling activity has been poorly implemented, among
those reasons, the absence of enthusiasm and participation of householders is the main
reason to blame (Matilda, 2009), because householders are the beginning of recycling
activities. The whole recycling program can be expired without a start of householders’
recycling behavior, which indicates that householders are the most crucial linkers in the
recycling activities. Their participation in the waste medications recycling, to a large extent,
determines the effectiveness of recycling practice (Breen, 2014).
Therefore, to enhance the effectiveness of recycling practice, it is necessary to find out the
factors influencing householders’ participation degree in recycling and design a suitable
incentive management system for medications recycling. Major influencing factors and the
management model are discussed more fully in following sections.
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3.1 Household waste medications recycling influencing factors model design
In general, a householer’s motivation can be measured from both external and internal
dimensions. According to Yang, Stamatogiannakis and Chattopadhyay’s research results,
internal factors and external factors can be further subdivided to two segments: stimulation
and promotion (Yang, 2015). The classification of factors is shown in Table 3–1 below.
