Mining the Drawers to Close the Loop : What drives Swedish Consumers to Recycle their Old Cell phone?

Background: The cell phone industry causes numerous environmental problems due to its extractive and unsustainable business practices. However, in recent years there has been a shift within the industry towards more circular economy (CE) centric business models. As a result, the industry has introduced a number of recycling schemes which would not only mitigate unsustainable disposal practices but also retrieve the precious material contained in old cell phones. Thereby, reducing the dependence on virgin resource extraction and the associated environmental degradation. Successful implementation however hinges on the willingness of consumers to participate in these schemes. Whereby a better understanding of consumers’ behavioural cues will help not only the producers to increase the effectiveness of these schemes but would from a policy making standpoint help facilitate this transition towards CE centric business models. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop an explanation of the determinants of recycling intention. Since, previous research indicates that intention to perform a behaviour dictates the materialization of the desired behaviour. Within this previous research, factors such as attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, moral incentive, convenience, awareness of consequences, concern for information security and environmental assessment have been shown to predict a person’s recycling intention. In this study, we empirically test the applicability of these factors in determining the intention to participate in recycling schemes in the context of cell phone recycling in a Swedish setting. Method: We adopted a positivist research philosophy, a deductive approach and an explanatory research design to conduct this quantitative research. The process started with a comprehensive literature to uncover the determinants of recycling intention to develop 13 hypotheses. Following which we surveyed 268 residents in Sweden to form generalizable insight about the various factors identified in the literature. As a result, 194 surveys were included based on the quality and qualification criteria. Finally, the data was analysed utilising structural equation modelling to test the hypotheses. Conclusion: We were able to confirm 8 of the 13 hypothesis developed. The results showed that moral incentive and convenience had the greatest influence on intention to participate in schemes.