Social interaction and recycling of waste mulch film

Understanding the impacts of communication channels

Bibliographic Data

ID21500744
AuthorsJing Li (0000-0001-7792-4322, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications), Xue Chang (0000-0002-4958-5711, Nanjing University of Finance and Economics), Xiaotong Li (0000-0002-2616-7963, University of Alabama in Huntsville, corresponding author)
Year2026
Volume42
Issue2
Pages852-867
Publication date2026-06-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInformation Development (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0266-6669 • E-ISSN: 1741-6469
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/02666669241247193
OpenAlexW4394925749
LanguageEN
References cited48

To control plastic pollution, it is imperative to encourage and facilitate waste mulch film (WMF) recycling by farmer cooperative members. We investigate the WMF recycling behavior of farmers in several randomly selected regions from the main vegetable-producing provinces in China. Propensity score matching is used to study the impacts of face-to-face, telephone, and social media communication on WMF recycling behavior of farmers. Our study shows that face-to-face communication is still the most important channel to promote farmers’ recycling behavior. Therefore, while it is more efficient to promote WMF recycling through social media in the Internet age, cooperative managers should not underestimate the role of face-to-face communication which is the preferred communication channel for many small farmers according to our analysis. Cooperative managers can better promote their members’ WMF recycling behavior through both social media and face-to-face communication

Business · Economics · Environmental economics · Mulch · Telecommunications · Agricultural Innovations and Practices · Computer Science · Environmental Science · Ecology

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