A comparison of waste reduction practices and the new environmental paradigm in four southern Chinese areas

This paper compares the public attitudes on waste recycling and avoidance a nd the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) of four places in South China, name ly, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Dongguan, and Yuanzhou in southern China, it was found that rural Chinese were the most acceptant of the NEP view, followed by people from Hong Kong. The current acceptance of the NEP view by Guangdo ng citizens was similar to that of the Hong Kong citizens and the late 1970 s U.S. citizens. Also, the present level of acceptance of NEP by Hong Kong public at large is higher than that of 7 years ago. On domestic waste recycling, it was found that source separation of domesti c waste in mainland China was supported by 85% of the urban population and about 11-13% of the household waste was recovered and sold by the household ers for financial gains. It was also found that the lower income group tend ed to recover a greater portion of waste, indicating that voluntary waste r ecovery activities in mainland China were carried out largely due to econom ic reasons. Thus, the Western type of source separation program in which re sidents are requested to separate recyclables for the community may not be welcomed in mainland China. In Hong Kong, despite the presence of community waste recovery programs, th e recovery of domestic waste is only about 6% and is therefore less than th ose of the mainland Chinese cities surveyed. On the choice of source separa tion programs, it was found that Hong Kong people ranked familiarity a more important criterion than convenience. Therefore, the collection frequency of recyclables and time and place for setting out recyclables should be as similar to those of normal waste collection as possible to attract high par ticipation in source separation programs.