Effect of publicity on public awareness and willingness for domestic waste management: a case study in a model village in China

Raising public awareness and willingness to manage domestic waste is a key strategy for solving waste pollution in rural areas. A model village in Sichuan Province in Southwest China was taken as a typical case to study the effect of publicity on public awareness and willingness to manage domestic waste, and the investigations were carried out using questionnaires and statistical methods. The results indicate that the public had good awareness of the necessity of waste treatment and a strong willingness to pay for the waste disposal fee in the model village. The percentage of approved respondents reached 98–100%. The publicity of waste management remarkably improved public willingness to classify waste. This percentage increased from 76.8 to 91.2% after publicity. However, public awareness of waste classification and willingness to work as a cleaner (55–70%) did not improve evidently. Meanwhile, public awareness of hazardous waste remained relatively weak. Logistic regression analysis showed that the publicity had the largest positive influence (OR = 1.856–6.871) on public awareness and the willingness to engage in domestic waste management. Gender and age also had significant impacts. Therefore, expanding the coverage of waste classification publicity, strengthening the education of waste toxicity, and diversifying publicity styles for different groups can improve public awareness and willingness to manage domestic waste in model rural areas.