IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v17y2025i10p4255-d1651260.html

Rural Household Garbage Sorting for Sustainable Development: Contributing to Substantial Health Improvements in China

Author

Listed:
  • Jia Yue

    (School of Business, Xiangtan Institute of Technology, Xiangtan 411100, China
    Graduate School, University of Perpetual Help System DALTA, Las Piñas 1740, Philippines
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Siyao Chen

    (School of Business, Xiangtan Institute of Technology, Xiangtan 411100, China
    Graduate School, University of Perpetual Help System DALTA, Las Piñas 1740, Philippines
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Zhixiong Weng

    (Institute of Circular Economy, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China
    State Key Laboratory of Materials Low-Carbon Recycling, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China)

Abstract

Promoting household garbage sorting holds substantial importance for improving the living environment, enhancing public health, and advancing sustainable development. Based on data from rural households in China, this study empirically examines the impact of garbage sorting on household health and explores its underlying mechanisms. The findings reveal that garbage sorting significantly improves households’ subjective health, with notable heterogeneity across regions and household characteristics. Specifically, the health benefits are more pronounced in the eastern region, as well as among households with higher levels of education and income, while the effects are less significant in lower-education and lower-income groups. Further analysis indicates that garbage sorting may also indirectly promote household health at the cognitive level by fostering greater engagement with health and wellness information. Moreover, garbage sorting is associated with positive changes in other health-related behaviors, such as better regulation of sugar, salt, and oil intake, as well as an increase in the use of health products. These results suggest that garbage sorting not only improves household health outcomes but also contributes to environmental sustainability and health equity, aligning with the broader goals of sustainable rural development.

Suggested Citation

  • Jia Yue & Siyao Chen & Zhixiong Weng, 2025. "Rural Household Garbage Sorting for Sustainable Development: Contributing to Substantial Health Improvements in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(10), pages 1-17, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:10:p:4255-:d:1651260
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/10/4255/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/10/4255/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Junpeng Li & Puneet Vatsa & Wanglin Ma, 2023. "Small Acts With Big Impacts: Does Garbage Classification Improve Subjective Well-Being in Rural China?," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 18(3), pages 1337-1363, June.
    2. Liyuan Zhao & Hongsheng Chen, 2021. "Exploring the Effect of Family Life and Neighbourhood on the Willingness of Household Waste Sorting," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-12, December.
    3. Liao, Liping & Du, Minzhe, 2024. "How digital finance shapes residents' health: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    4. Yujun Yuan & Tong Li & Qiang Zhai, 2020. "Life Cycle Impact Assessment of Garbage-Classification Based Municipal Solid Waste Management Systems: A Comparative Case Study in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(15), pages 1-20, July.
    5. Li, Wenli & Yu, Youping & He, Qiang & Xu, Dingde & Qi, Yanbin & Deng, Xin, 2023. "Impact of clean energy use on the subjective health of household members: Empirical evidence from rural China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 263(PD).
    6. Merve Çelik Keçili & Başak Sezgin Kiroğlu & Ethem Esen, 2025. "Does where you live affect your health? Evidence from households in Türkiye," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 45(2), pages 247-270, June.
    7. Pengya Ai & Wu Li & Wuyue Yang, 2021. "Adolescents’ Social Media Use and Their Voluntary Garbage Sorting Intention: A Sequential Mediation Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(15), pages 1-12, July.
    8. Decai Tang & Lei Shi & Xiaojuan Huang & Ziqian Zhao & Biao Zhou & Brandon J. Bethel, 2022. "Influencing Factors on the Household-Waste-Classification Behavior of Urban Residents: A Case Study in Shanghai," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(11), pages 1-16, May.
    9. Alharthi, Majed & Hanif, Imran & Alamoudi, Hawazen, 2022. "Impact of environmental pollution on human health and financial status of households in MENA countries: Future of using renewable energy to eliminate the environmental pollution," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 338-346.
    10. Ling Zhang & Xinzhu Zheng & Wenling Liu & Li Ma, 2025. "More habitual deviation alleviates the trade‐offs between dietary health, environmental impacts, and economic cost," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 29(2), pages 503-517, April.
    11. Qiao Liu & Qianhui Xu & Xin Shen & Bowei Chen & Sonia Sadeghian Esfahani, 2022. "The Mechanism of Household Waste Sorting Behaviour—A Study of Jiaxing, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-12, February.
    12. Joachim Gotink & Sylvie Gadeyne, 2025. "Perception of the Residential Living Environment: The Relationship Between Objective and Subjective Indicators of the Residential Living Environment and Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 22(3), pages 1-13, March.
    13. Eun-Ju Lim & Eun-Jung Hyun, 2021. "The Impacts of Pilates and Yoga on Health-Promoting Behaviors and Subjective Health Status," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(7), pages 1-23, April.
    14. Wencong Cai & Yuanjie Deng & Qiangqiang Zhang & Haiyu Yang & Xuexi Huo, 2021. "Does Income Inequality Impair Health? Evidence from Rural China," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-18, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Xuxi Wang & Jing Tan, 2022. "The Perception and Attitude of Farmers toward Domestic Waste Classifications: A Case Study on Wusheng County, Sichuan Province, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(20), pages 1-14, October.
    2. Nor Isnaeni Dwi Arista & Dwini Handayani & Ninin Ernawati, 2023. "Is It Possible to Implement the Same Circular-Economy Concept in Rural and Urban Areas? Study on Willingness to Pay for Household Waste," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-14, March.
    3. Zhu, Huanyu & Ma, Wanglin & Vatsa, Puneet & Zheng, Hongyun, 2023. "Clean energy use and subjective and objective health outcomes in rural China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    4. Sahoo, Dukhabandhu & Mohanty, Pritisudha & Mishra, Surbhi & Behera, Manash & Mohapatra, Souryabrata, 2024. "Does climate-smart agriculture technology improve the subjective well-being of farmers? Evidence from micro-level data," MPRA Paper 123955, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Dingde Xu & Chen Qing & Yang Chen & Jia He & Fengwan Zhang, 2023. "Sustainable Development of Rural Human Settlements in the Information Age: Can Internet Use Drive Farmers to Participate in Garbage Classification?," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-17, April.
    6. A. G. Olabi & Khaled Obaideen & Mohammad Ali Abdelkareem & Maryam Nooman AlMallahi & Nabila Shehata & Abdul Hai Alami & Ayman Mdallal & Asma Ali Murah Hassan & Enas Taha Sayed, 2023. "Wind Energy Contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals: Case Study on London Array," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-22, March.
    7. Xin Shen & Xun Cao & Sonia Sadeghian Esfahani & Tayyaba Saleem, 2022. "Factors Influencing Consumers’ Purchase Intention on Cold Chain Aquatic Products under COVID-19: An Investigation in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(8), pages 1-14, April.
    8. Huang, Jie & Lu, Hongyang & Du, Minzhe, 2025. "Can digital economy narrow the regional economic gap? Evidence from China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    9. Baihui Jin & Wei Li, 2023. "External Factors Impacting Residents’ Participation in Waste Sorting Using NCA and fsQCA Methods on Pilot Cities in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-21, February.
    10. Liu, Jian & Ren, Yanjun & Glauben, Thomas, 2021. "The effect of income inequality on nutritional outcomes: Evidence from rural China," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 22(3), pages 125-143.
    11. Bohuang Pan & Tomiwa Sunday Adebayo & Ridwan Lanre Ibrahim & Mamdouh Abdulaziz Saleh Al-Faryan, 2023. "Does nuclear energy consumption mitigate carbon emissions in leading countries by nuclear power consumption? Evidence from quantile causality approach," Energy & Environment, , vol. 34(7), pages 2521-2543, November.
    12. Sen, Kanchan Kumar & Chapman, Andrew J. & Saha, Bidyut Baran, 2025. "Analyzing the influence of energy poverty on newborn mortality through econometric and machine learning approaches," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    13. Emodi, Nnaemeka Vincent & Inekwe, John Nkwoma & Zakari, Abdulrasheed, 2022. "Transport infrastructure, CO2 emissions, mortality, and life expectancy in the Global South," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 243-253.
    14. Zhaoyun Yin & Jing Ma, 2022. "Rational Choice or Altruism Factor: Determinants of Residents’ Behavior toward Household Waste Separation in Xi’an, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-12, September.
    15. Oluwatoyin Abidemi Somoye & Huseyin Ozdeser & Mehdi Seraj, 2024. "The asymmetric impact of fossil fuel and renewable energy consumption on life expectancy in Nigeria," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(2), pages 385-403, May.
    16. Rui Yang & Qijie Gao, 2021. "Water-Saving Irrigation Promotion and Food Security: A Study for China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-14, November.
    17. Pham Tien Thanh & Katsuhiro Saito, 2024. "Poverty reduction and migration in rural Vietnam: Role of local firm clusters," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 1231-1266, August.
    18. Bo Liu & Na Li & Cairong Liao, 2024. "Effects of Social Capital on the Adoption of Green Production Technologies by Rice Farmers: Moderation Effects Based on Risk Preferences," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(20), pages 1-20, October.
    19. Yongqi Liang & Jian Tang & Heng Xia & Loai Aljerf & Bingyin Gao & Mulugeta Legesse Akele, 2023. "Three-Dimensional Numerical Modeling and Analysis for the Municipal Solid-Waste Incineration of the Grate Furnace for Particulate-Matter Generation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(16), pages 1-22, August.
    20. Assiya Atabayeva & Anar Kurmanalina & Gaukhar Kalkabayeva & Aigerim Lambekova & Ainur Myrzhykbayeva & Yerbolsyn Akbayev, 2024. "Utilizing Investment in Fixed Assets and R&D as a Catalyst for Boosting Productivity to Stimulate Economic Growth," Economies, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-24, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:10:p:4255-:d:1651260. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.