Empiric study of clothing disposal behaviors in China

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Empiric study of clothing disposal behaviors in China

Master thesis, MSc, Supply Chain Management

University of Groningen, Faculty of Management and Organization

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Abstract

Since the textiles industry waste is becoming a big environmental problem today and most of the researches in this field were conducted in the developed countries. I pick China which could represent the developing countries as my subject. This paper aims to investigate the consumers‟ clothing disposal behaviors in China. Considering the serious environmental issues and the rapid economic development in China, the clothing recycling is really a matter of concern. In addition, no researches take the education level into account when studying the clothing disposal behaviors so far. Overall, I pick China as the representative of developing countries to study the clothing disposal behaviors and add the education level as one new independent variable in my study. Online questionnaire is used to measure the clothing disposal behaviors (resale behavior and donation behavior) and the factors (environmental concern, economic concern, information unavailability), and education level which could influence them. Findings show the donation behavior is influenced by the educational level and the environmental concern. The resale behavior is influenced by the educational level, environmental concern and the economic concern. The findings suggest that the government should take measures to encourage the residents to recycle the used clothing and improve their education level. It is also necessary to open up the secondary market in China.

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1. Introduction

As the daily necessaries, the demand of clothing products keeps a rapid increasing rate during the last decades. Also, the quick increase of the consumers‟ living standards makes the life cycle of the clothing products shorten greatly (Shi et al.2011). Unfortunately, the environmental problems caused by the textiles waste increases fast as well. There is a total of 13 million tons of various textiles waste in the world every year, of which China has one million (Joung and Park-Poaps, 2011and Tao and Wang, 2009). Depressingly, most of the used textiles are delivered to the landfills to be buried or burned instead of to be reused, which results in not only a waste of resources, but also the environmental pollution. For example, the discarded clothing in UK is 30 kilo grams per person per year, and only one eighth of the waste are sent to charities or recycled. Similarly, Japan has about one million tons of clothing are thrown away as garbage every year, which only 10% were recycled. Undoubtedly, textiles and clothing has become one of the fastest growing solid wastes now (Tao and Wang, 2009).

As we all know, People‟s Republic of China has the largest population in the world. No surprisingly, China has become the world's largest textile-producing and textile-consuming country, both of the import and export volume ranking the first in the world (Yang, 2011 and Niu, 2009). Unfortunately, the large number of the textiles products causes the serious environmental problems in China at the same time; the existing data shows that almost one eighth of the textile waste are in China. There are various reasons for this, the main problems are that the approach to recycle the used clothing is very limited in China and residents‟ awareness of environment is pretty weak as well (Zu et al., 2010; Tao and Wang, 2009 and Niu, 2009).

For many people, the pollution and energy consumption of clothing and textiles seems much less than many other industries, such as plastic, paper and glass. Because those industries have been studied for a long time and it is clear that they have very serious environmental problems. Besides, clothing is much more difficult to recycle in the way glass and paper does because the glass and paper can be reclaimed as pure natural products, but the clothing cannot (Shim, 1995). It is also not mysterious that how to reuse or recycle those products (glass and paper) today. However, the disposal behavior of clothing and textiles industry is still in the black box (Birtwistle and Moore, 2007 and Zu et al. 2010).

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of them have been studied to show the huge difference between the developed countries and developing countries. For instance, according to Park et al (2011), the developing countries have left far behind the developed countries for the economic development. Moreover, in the developing countries, the attitude towards environment of the residents is really poor compared with the developed countries, since the basic needs are their priority to concern, not the environmental issues (Manjengwa, 2007; Baumol and Oates 1979). Finally, the environmental infrastructures in the developing countries are extremely bad which leads to the fact that the relevant information is very limited in the developing countries (Daniere and Takahashi, 1999; Chang et al., 2001; Massoud et al., 2010).

With a population of more than 1.4 billion and sustained economic growth, China becomes the most representative and most influential developing country in the world, many researches use China as the example when they want to study the developing countries (Goldman, 2001; Arthur,2006; Shen et al., 2003). As a matter of fact, the textiles industry plays an important role in the Chinese industry output value, the „Chinese apparel industry risk analysis report in 2011‟ shows that the textiles industry occupied 2.6 percent of the GDP in China and keep a sustained growth from 2006. Sadly, the air and water pollution caused by textiles industry are very serious in China (MacBean, 2007). Therefore, it is worth to study the way to recycle the used textile products in China to reduce the pollution during the production process.

Moreover, the difference in educational level has been studied by many researchers in several fields; the results indicate that the educational gap has strongly relationship with human behavior. For example, Becker et al. (2007) argued that education background has a large impact when managers make decisions; Joseph Pricea et al. (2011) found the direct relationship between the educational gap and medical care behavior. Furthermore, in the sustainable development field (Michalos et al., 2011), digit span field (Ostrosky‐Solís, and Lozano, 2007) and ethical sensitivity field (Swenson-Lepper, 2005), the effects of the educational gap have been addressed. In conclusion, Ostrosky‐Solís, and Lozano (2007) argued that lack of education will lead to the weakness of cognition, on the contrary, the higher education level could enhance the ability to control their behavior. Based on the previous evidence, I think the education gap could influence the clothing disposal behaviors as well. However, no research takes the educational gap into account so far.

Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to examine the way how the educational gap and the factors (environmental concern, economic concern, and information unavailability) influence consumers‟ clothing disposal behavior in China. To address the above issues, my research question is “How do the customer factors and their educational level influence the clothing disposal behaviors in Chinese context”

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2. Literature Review and Hypotheses

Consumers dispose of clothing for different reasons, such as old fashioned, bad fit or wear-out (Koch and Domina, 1999). Consumers have several options to get rid of their old clothing. Bianchi and Birtwistl (2012) found that donating to the non-profit charities, selling the clothing online and giving away to the friends or families are common disposal behaviors mentioned by customers. However, according to Koch and Domina (1999), donating to non-profit charities and giving away to friends and families are similar options for clothing disposal. Therefore, I pick donation and resale as two important disposal behaviors in my research.

2.1 Donation Behavior

Donating the unwanted clothing to the non-profit organizations is one of the most frequently used disposal behavior. Since the customers do not get the economic benefits from donation, altruistic concern is the main motivation among the customers, in other words, the customers wish to help others in need by donating their unwanted clothing(Shim, 1995; Koch and Domina, 1999).

Among the three factors (environment concern, economic concern and information unavailability), environmental concern is the one being studied most frequently. Environmental concern contains the awareness of the environment, and consumers‟ attitude toward environment. The environment concern refers to consumers‟ behavior regarding the weakness of the environment and the notion that their consumption can damage the environment (Strong 1996).

Previous studies state that the environmental concern is positively related to the donation behavior, which means residents are more willing to donate their old clothing if they care about the environment (Bianchi and Birtwistle, 2012, Shim, 1995). In the developed countries, consumers have strong environmental knowledge; therefore they are able to notice that their behavior could damage the environment. As a consequence, they consciously try to save the environment as much as they can. Unfortunately, according to the “Chinese Public Environmental Index (2008)”, which released by China Environmental Culture Promotion Association, the overall score of consumers‟ environmental awareness is only 44.5 out of 100, the environmental behavior score is even lower (37.0). This data shows that most of the Chinese people are not able to aware their behavior is bad for the environment. This is a critical reason of the terrible environment problems.

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developing countries have to concern about the basic needs instead of the higher level things such as environmental issues, not to mention donating their clothing to the charities. This kind of people really needs help because the clothing is a thorny issue for them as the same as other daily necessities.

Attitude towards the environment is not the main difference between the recycler and non-recycler in some cases; instead, the limited information they could get is the biggest obstacle for them (Vining and Ebreo, 1990; Domina and Koch, 2002; De Young, R., 1989). Information unavailability means the consumers are not able to find a recycling program or there is no recycling program available at all, so consumers have to choose other options. Similarly, Zu et al. (2010) indicate that the most serious problem in China is the limited number of the recycling programs and their various restrictions regarding the recycling clothes. However, the latest research found that the information unavailability is not related to any clothing disposal behavior in the developed countries, because consumers have a variety of approaches to get rid of their used clothing today (Joung and Park-Poaps, 2011). Nevertheless, it is not the case in China, as I mentioned in the introduction section, there is few recycling program in China today. There is also a special case in China: consumers‟ donation could not meet the requirement of the recycling programs. In other words, even consumers are willing to donate their clothing to the charities; they still could be rejected based on some strict rules. Therefore, consumers are forced to choose other convenient options to deal with their old clothes. In order to confirm this statement, I take the biggest social assistance organization in China---„Red Cross Society of China‟ as an example. As expected, they only accept the clothing which has to be gently used or even new. Some smaller programs even only accept the new clothing, since the converting cost is too high to afford.

Although the relation between clothing donation and the educational level is not tested yet, Lemmens et al (2009) have found the correlation between the blood donation and the educational level. The result indicates that the educational level is positively related to the donation behavior. Even if these two donation behaviors are not totally the same, they have a lot in common, such as altruism, moral obligation and satisfaction.

2.2 Resale Behavior

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environmental pollution

According to Zu et al. (2010), almost half of the Chinese families have more than 30 clothes in store and they will purchase more than 10 new ones on avera ge every year. Over 90% of respondents said thenew clothes will be eliminated after one year, only 25% of them said they will keep the clothes for more than three years. This situation indicates that there are a lot of used clothing is waiting to be processed in China. The question is if the Chinese market can solve this problem?

There are many resale stores in the developed countries; they become more popular and convenient for the residents now. According to Lee (2007), one of the biggest online store-eBay‟s clothing site even has more visitors than Victoria Secret‟s. However, the situation is different in Chinese context. There are more than 5000 recycling companies in China in 2009; unfortunately, only few of them are textile recycling company. Compared with other countries and industries, the textile recycling industry is very backward in China (Tao and Wang, 2009). The situation is exactly the same in the second-hand clothing market in China. There are numbers of the second-hand clothing stores in Hong Kong, Japan, USA and European countries, but it is still the blank market in China. As a result of concerning about the health issues, Chinese consumers are not willing to purchase the second-hand clothing (http://daohang.zz91.com/ershouyifu). These facts means the second-hand market contributes little to the large number of the used clothing remain to be disposed.

The education level of consumers is proportional to residents‟ income in China, that is, the higher education they have received, the more money they could earn. (Annual Meeting of the economics and education in 2010).Due to the fact that the second-hand clothing market is not popular in China now; the consumers only have the very small chance to sell their used clothing for economic benefits. Moreover, Morley et al. (2006) indicate that consumers are less willing to buy the second-hand clothing with low price and quality, because they are too worthless to use. Meanwhile, recycling programs are less likely to recycle the low price and quality clothing as well, because the cost of recycling them is too high to afford. In brief, most of the second-hand clothing is expensive in Chinese market. Considering the economic situation of those low education level consumers, they do not have such kind of clothing available to sell and it is difficult for them to buy it as well. Therefore, the secondary market is available to the residents who have the high educational level.

2.3 Theoretical framework

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Shim‟s theory of environmentalism (Shim, 1995). In this study, environmental attitude was used as a framework together with waste recycling behavior to predict the clothing disposal behavior. According to the theory, environmental attitude has a stronger influence on several environmentally oriented clothing disposal behaviors than waste recycling behavior. Shim (1995) also examined the economic impact on the clothing disposal behavior. For example, the author states that the resale behavior is largely influenced by the monetary reason.

Several researches have proved the theory‟s value of the relationship between information unavailability and clothing disposal behavior. For instance, Domina and Koch (2002) argue that the information available for the residents has a strong influence on the frequency of their disposal behavior. The residents are more likely to dispose clothing when they have more information to use.

Although the relationship between educational level and the clothing disposal behavior were not conducted before, the educational level has been proved that could influence the human behavior in several fields. For example, Ostrosky‐Solís, and Lozano (2007) demonstrated the importance of the educational level and human social behavior. In this study, the educational level could influence the altruistic beliefs of the residents, which has impact on their social behavior.

Based on the review of the existing studies, the following hypotheses were developed:

H1: The donation behavior is positively related to the environment concern H2: The donation behavior is negatively related to the economic concern H3: The donation behavior is negatively related to the information unavailability H4: The donation behavior is positively related to the educational level

H5: The resale behavior is positively related to the environment concern H6: The resale behavior is positively related to the economic concern

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Figure1. Conceptual Model

The relationships are described in Figure 1 which presents the conceptual model. This model includes four independent variables: environmental concern, economic concern, information unavailability, and education level. This model also includes two forms of clothing disposal behavior as dependent variables: donating to nonprofit charities and resell the used clothing.

3. Method

The data is collected by the online survey; the questionnaire is put on a free online database of China. There is a pilot test to ensure thereadability and understandability of the questionnaire. Four Chinese students were picked and asked to answer the questionnaire carefully. It helps me to translate the questions into Chinese sentence precisely. I put my questionnaire on the website after I am sure the questionnaire will not be misunderstood. Every resident in China could find my questionnaire and fill in it on the Wenjuanxing Questionnaire website which is one of the biggest online questionnaire databases. I also sent the link of the questionnaire to my friends and families in China directly to expand the scope of dissemination.

The questionnaire includes several sections concerning the different consumer factors and different textile disposal behaviors.All these measures used a 5-point Likert-type,

+ Environmental

Concern

Economic Concern Donation

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which “1” is strongly agree and “5” is strongly disagree. In the beginning, respondents were required to fill in some of their characteristicin terms of gender, age, education level and income. The education level, one of the independent variable, also used five-point scale, “graduated from primary school” is “1”, and “Master or higher level” is “5”.Environmental concern was measured through a two-item scale in section one, both of them adapted from Bianchi and Birtwistle (2012). Economic concern was measured through a two-item scale in section two adopted from Shim (1995). The information unavailability was measured through a two-item scale in section three adopted from Joung and Park-Poaps (2011). Resale behavior was measured through a two-item scale in section four and donation behavior was measured through a two-item scale in section five, they all adopted from Bianchi and Birtwistle (2012). There is also an open-ended question in the last section to ask respondents about the advice about improving the clothing disposal behaviors in China. The respondents could select more than one option in the questionnaire. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression analysis were conducted through Statistical Product and Service Solutions.

After the data was collected, 512 residents in China completed the questionnaire and 388 (74.4%) are usable. The reliability and validity of the construct were measured by Cronbach‟s alpha. Reliability coefficients which indicate appropriate internal consistency for all scales have relatively high Cronbach‟s alpha scores (over 0.6). Environment concern scale ( α =0.801), economic concern scale ( α =0.771), information unavailability scale ( α =0.686), resale behavior scale ( α =0.835), donation behavior scale (α=0.659). The results are shown in Table 1.

Variables Cronbach‟s alpha

Environment concern 0.801

Economic concern 0.771

Information unavailability 0.686

Resale 0.835

Donation 0.659

Table1. Cronbach‟s alpha (Cut-off value is 0.6)

The mean and the standard deviation were calculated for analysis, each items could range from 1-5. Higher scores expressed more motivations. The mean and standard deviation of the variables are shown in Table 2.

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Table2. Mean and Standard Deviation

The resale behavior gets the lowest mean score (2.56), it indicates that most of the Chinese residents will not sell their used clothing for recycling. The economic concern gets the highest mean score (4.01) which means the Chinese residents really care about saving their money. The mean of the environment concern is 3.16, which suggests that Chinese residents care about the environmental issues. The mean of the information unavailability is 3.82 which states that the information about the textile recycling is limited in China. The mean of the educational level is 3.89, it expresses the most of the respondents are well-educated. The mean of the donation behavior is 3.75, which shows that Chinese residents are willing to donate their unwanted clothing.

4. Results

4.1 Hypotheses testing

Hypotheses were statistically tested using multiple regression analysis. The multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the influence of the independent variables (factors and educational level) on the disposal behaviors (donation and resale). The results are shown in the Table 3.

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Table3. Regression Analysis (βmeans coefficient value, bigger value means the more the dependent variable could be explained by independent variable. Regarding β, “+” means the relation is positive and “-” means the relation is negative. p means significant level, if the value is lower than 0.05, it means the hypothesis is supported)

For the donation behavior, the regression model was significant [R2=0.11, F (4,383) =12.365, P<0.001] and explained 11% of the variance. Environment concern(β= 0.18, P < 0.01) and educational level (β= 0.35, P < 0.01) were significantly related to the donation behavior, while information unavailability and economic concern were not related to the donation behavior.

For the resale behavior, the regression model was significant [R2=0.30, F (4,383) =42.585, P<0.001] and explained 30% of the variance. Environment concern(β= 0.13, P < 0.01), economic concern(β= 0.57, P < 0.01) and educational level (β= 0.26, P < 0.01) were significantly related to the resale behavior, while the information unavailability is not significantly related to the resale behavior.

4.2 Qualitative findings

There is an open-ended question provided for the respondents in the survey: What is your suggestion for the used clothing recycling in China? The conclusions are shown below:

First of all, a lot of respondents mentioned that the parents can give the used clothing to the younger children in their family in the past, because usually there is more than one child in a family. However, the situation changes now due to the “One-child” policy in China, which the parents are more attending to spoil their children because they only have one child now, so that they will buy a lot of new cloths for them. Moreover, usually the parents will not accept the used clothing from other people because of the “face” thing (refuse others‟ help due to the purpose of preserving their dignity), even if they like the clothing. This causes the problems that more and more idle clothing need to be process in China.

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situation step by step.

Third, there is a need for adopting the standard rules of the coordination between the recycling programs and the residents, especially regarding the economic interests. Because the recycling market is almost blank in China, therefore the existing recycling programs provide a really low price for the residents to collect their used clothing. It makes the residents prefer to throw the used clothing away rather than recycle them. What‟s more, sometimes the charities reject the residents‟ donation because the clothing is too old; which makes many residents confused and angry. The explanation of the recycling program is that the cost for the old clothing is too high to bear. Some non-profit charities explained that the old clothing will not be accepted by the beneficiaries. Anyhow, it caused serious pollution because many residents chose to throw the clothing away after they were rejected.

5. Discussion of findings

The most noticeable thing is that the educational level is positively related to the donation behavior and the resale behavior. This finding is consistent with the findings in other fields that the educational level has the positive impact on human behavior. It indicated that the well educated people are more willing to donate or sell their clothing. In other words, increasing the residents‟ education level can make the donation and secondary markets more active, so that more used clothing can be recycled. It suggested that the government should pay more attention to the education in China. The illiteracy rate of the Chinese residents is relatively high in the past. However, because of the efforts of the Chinese government, the illiteracy rate reduces very fast. For instance, one of the best education policy----the enrollment expansion of the universities from 2009 (the enrollment scale of universities was expanded by 42% in 2009), more and more people have received the good education opportunities (Duan, 2006). The Chinese government should keep this situation and try to increase the investigation in the future.

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awareness of environment, the government could set specific laws to punish the behavior which is harmful to the environment. Moreover, it is necessary to set up the specialized agencies which are responsible for the environment issues and the recycling process (Brill, 1991). Future Vision (1991) also suggests that it is a good way for government to encourage the top manufacturers to produce the environmentally friendly products. The reason is that their social influence and visibility are very helpful to spread the concept of environmental protection.

It is not surprise that the economic concern is the strongest factor of the resale behavior, it indicates that consumers want to save their money by selling unwanted clothing. In addition, consumers are less likely to participate in resale process if the clothing is poor in value and quality. In other words, it is important if their unwanted clothing is attractive to other consumers (Koch and Domina, 1999, Morley et al. 2006). In the same way, consumers are tending to sell expensive clothing in the second-hand market in China so that they have very limited visitors. The government could encourage the low-price market to lure more ordinary consumers. Further, in order to reduce the cost of handling the used clothing, the government and the recycling programs ought to investigate more in research and design. The economic concern was not related to the donation behavior; it may be that the residents cannot get the economic benefits from donation. In order to encourage more residents to participate the recycling process, the charities could provide donors with appropriate subsidies in certain circumstances.

There is an unexpected finding of my study that the information unavailability was not related to the disposal behaviors. The finding is inconsistent with the previous researches (De Young, 1989; Domina and Koch, 2002). It may be that there is no such a culture of recycling in China, residents‟ awareness of recycling is really weak. It is necessary to foster an environment that this is everyone‟s duty to recycle the used clothing. Not only should the government take the responsibility, but also the volunteers in the schools or communities. Advertising is also a kind of approach to strengthen the consciousness of residents to recycle.

6. Conclusion and recommendations

6.1 Conclusions

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education level into this study as a new independent variable.

This research started off with one main research question: How do the customer factors and their educational level influence the clothing disposal behaviors in Chinese context. The results of this question are stated below.

In term of the donation behavior, the result shows that the environment concern is positively related to the donation behaviors which consistent with the results of the previous researches. Therefore, if the residents have enough awareness of the environment concerns, they are more willing to donate the used clothing. Because they know the clothing waste could damage our environment. The result also states that the educational level is positively related to the donation behavior which means the better educated residents are more willing to donate their clothing. This finding suggests that the government should take measure to improve the educational level of the residents.

For the resale behavior, the results indicate that resale behavior is related to the environment concern, economic concern and the educational level. We can see from the result that if the residents care about the environmental issues and take pleasure in improving it, they like to sell their unwanted clothing. Finding also suggests that the Chinese people are very care about saving their money; therefore they are willing to sell their unwanted clothing to make money. The relation between the resale behavior and the educational level is the same as the donation behavior which indicates that the education is a really matter of concern in the recycling area.

6.2 Recommendations

This study attempted to make an important contribution to the scant literature on consumer disposal behaviors of used clothing in China. First of all, the government should use its power to set up specialized agencies and laws to improve the residents‟ awareness of environment. The reason is that the residents may not be able to aware of the seriousness of the problem. Thus the government should play its role to speed up the process.

Secondly, the education in China is a really important factor related the clothing disposal behavior. The Chinese government has attached greater importance to the education problem and should keep it like this and try to investigate more in the future.

Third, since the Chinese residents care so much about saving money, the government should improve the second-hand clothing market in China to attract more visitors. For instance, government should take measure to extend the low-end market, so that more common consumers will spend their money in the secondary market.

6.3 Limitations

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customer factors should be taken into account, such as discarding and fashion innovativeness. Since the limitation of variables might exclude some other important relations. Secondly, not only the survey should be conducted, but also the in-depth interviews. It helps to collect more direct and qualitative data which make the analysis more comprehensive. Finally, the limitation of the sample is that most of the respondents are young people; it would be useful to extend this study to a wider project to study different groups such as old people in order to better understand the underlying relationships between the consumers‟ concerns and the clothing disposal behaviors.

Figure 2. Age

7. Acknowledgement

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Appendix

Appendix A-Questionnaire

Clothing disposal behavior

Your view on the used clothing disposal behavior

This questionnaire is part of a research project to understand people‟s views about used clothing disposal in China. Your responses are important in enabling me to obtain as full an understanding as possible of this topical issue.

The questionnaire should take you about five minutes to complete. Please answer the questions in the spaces provided. If you wish to add further comments, please feel free to do so. The information you provide will be treated in the strictest confidence. You will notice that you are not asked to include your name or address anywhere on the questionnaire.

The answers from your questionnaire and others will be used as the main data set for my research project for my degree in Supply chain management at the University of Groningen.

I hope that you will find completing the questionnaire enjoyable. If you have any questions or would like further information, please do not hesitate to email me at yxdjimmy1988@gmail.com

Thank you for your help.

Xidong Yu

Characteristics of the respondents Gender Male Female Age 20-30 years old 31-40 years old 41-50 years old 51-60 years old 60 years old or older

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23 rang of the age as much as possible

Education level

Graduated from primary school Graduated from junior high school Graduated from senior middle school Graduated from University

Master or higher

Income (Yuan) Less than 10000 Yuan 10000-20000 Yuan 20000-30000 Yuan 30000-40000 Yuan More than 40000 Yuan

According to the National Economic and Social Development Statistics Report in 2012, the average income of Chinese residents is 26959 Yuan per year

Environment Concern:

1. I feel personally helpless to have much impact on the environment 2. Recycling will not be enough to save the environment

Economic Concern:

1. I am a very economic person

2. Cost is my priority indicators when I go shopping

Information Unavailability

1. I never notice if there are any recycling programs in my city. 2. There is little propaganda about recycling programs in my city.

Resale

1. I sell my clothing to second hand shops 2. I sell my clothing on eBay or equivalent

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1. I give clothing to non-profit charities frequently 2. It makes me feel good to give clothing to charity shops

Open ended question

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25

Appendix B-Data analysis results

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26

Environment concern

Item Statistics

Mean Std. Deviation N 1. I feel personally

helpless to have much impact on the environment

3.11 1.376 388

2. Recycling will not be enough to save the environment

3.19 1.227 388

Economic concern

Item Statistics

Mean Std. Deviation N I am a very economic person 4.0954 .81882 388 Cost is my priority indicators

when I go shopping

3.9356 .83122 388

Information unavailability

Item Statistics

Mean Std. Deviation N I never notice if there are

any recycling programs in my city

3.5155 1.25229 388

There is little propaganda about recycling programs in my city. 4.1314 .94047 388 Resale behavior Item Statistics Mean Std. Deviation N 1. I sell my clothing to

second hand shops

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27 Scale Mean if Item Deleted Scale Variance if Item Deleted Corrected Item-Total Correlation Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted I give clothing to non-profit

charities frequently

3.4897 1.14228 388

. It makes me feel good to

give clothing to charity shops

4.0026 .90219 388

.

3 Regression test

3.1 Dependent Variable: Donation

Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients t Sig. B Std. Error Beta 1 (Constant) 3.878 .535 7.244 .000 Environment 0.184 .049 .201 3.724 .000 Economic .056 .075 .036 .751 .453 Information .091 .061 .081 1.500 .134 Educationallevel .352 .080 .215 4.424 .000

3.2 Dependent Variable: Resale

Empiric study of clothing disposal behaviors in China