Reverse logistics in household recycling and waste systems: a symbiosis perspective
研究了家庭废物回收系统与回收行为之间的共生效应，发现便利性、可用性和可达性是影响回收行为的关键因素，对市政废物管理和可持续发展有实际意义。
Purpose: The article investigates the proposition there is a symbiosis effect for exchanges between household waste recycling systems (HWRS) and household recycling behaviour (HRB) within the reverse logistics (RL) discourse. Design/methodology/approach: The article contains empirical findings from a two phase, multi-method approach comprising consecutive inductive and deductive investigations. The qualitative and quantitative data underpin exploratory and explanatory findings which broaden and deepen understanding of this phenomenon. Findings: Analysis identified significant interactions between situational and personal factors, specifically demographic factors, impacting on HRB with key factors identified as engagement convenience, availability and accessibility. Research limitations/implications: Findings confirm the existence of a symbiosis effect between situational and personal factors and inform current research threads in the environmental sciences, behavioural and logistics literature, particularly identifying consumers as being an important pivot point between forward and reverse logistics flows. Practical implications: Findings should inform RL-HWRS design by municipalities looking to more effectively manage MSW and enhance recycling and sustainability. RL practitioners should introduce systems to support recovery of MSW in sympathy with communication and education initiatives to affect HRB and should also appreciate a symbiosis effect in the design of HWRS. Social implications: The social implications of improved recycling performances in municipalities are profound. Even incremental improvements in the performance of HWRS can lead to enhanced sustainability through higher recycling rates, reduced diversion of MSW to landfill, decreases in pollution levels, reduced carbon footprints and reduction in depletion of scarce natural resources. Originality/value: The paper marks an early contribution to the study of symbiosis in HWRS and HRB pertaining to RL. Findings are offered that identify the key situational and personal factors that interact to affect HWRS, and also offer insights above those available in current multi-disciplinary literature that has largely examined such factors in isolation. Conclusions offer the possibility of an epistemological bridge between the social and natural sciences.