Recycling attitudes & behaviours: A study of plastics recycling supply chains in Pakistan

This paper compares recycling attitudes and behaviours of key participants in Pakistan's plastics recycling supply chains. It involved mainly cross sectional surveys of 360 households and 51 scrap dealers, and multiple case studies with 26 plastics pre-processors and 28 plastics recyclers (moulders/converters) at seven cities in Pakistan. Guided by the model of consumer recycling behaviour proposed by Thøgersen (International Journal of Research in Marketing, 1994, 11, pp. 145-163) this paper found a mix of different attitudes and behaviours. It appears that households lacked awareness of the process involved after plastics recyclables are collected and they lacked opportunity to participate; furthermore their recycling behaviour was largely motivated by financial benefits. Material recovery facilities provided by the government appeared to be inadequate. For other private-sector participants (scrap dealers, re-processor and moulders), they lacked investment in equipments for sorting and storage of plastics waste. We further explain the roles of social norms, ability to recycle, opportunity to recycle and motivation (awareness or monetary) and extend Thøgersen's model to include not just households but also scrap dealers, re-processors and moulders. The developed measurement instrument is useful to study other recycling supply chains.