Examining factors of household’ waste sorting behaviour in an urban area: A case study in Sidoarjo, Indonesia

Abstract Examining and investigating household’ waste sorting behaviour (WSB) is essential as strategy to optimize solid waste management (SWM). This research was conducted to examine the internal and external factors influencing WSB in Sidoarjo regency. The theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and the norm activation model (NAM) applied to investigate, since each area its own “psychological” characters. By utilizing questionnaires from 190 household respondents distributed in 18 sub-districts, it will be analyzed using structural equation modelling (SEM) with SmartPLS 4.0.9.6. Further, adding “government support” as an external moderator and “knowledge” is expected to improve the predictive power of the WSB. The results showed that the personal norms not only could be a significant influence but also significantly increased the mediating factors (i.e. attitude, social norms, awareness of consequences, perceived behavioural control, knowledge) toward WSB. Meanwhile, local government support was shown to have significant direct effect but was unexpectedly shown to have no indirect effect as moderator influencing PN towards WSB. It indicated that the role of government targeting “residents’ awareness” in the form of programs related to intervention or environmental management is less perceived. It implied that regulators should target environmental education and effective policy-making to boost residents to be more positive toward WSB in reducing the waste generation problem.