College students' municipal solid waste source separation behavior and its influential factors: A case study in Beijing, China

China has the highest higher education enrollment across the world since 2005. Beijing has China's greatest concentration of higher education universities and institutes, and therefore has the greatest potential and necessity for conducting waste source separation on university campuses. This study conducted a face-to-face intercept survey on 10 university campuses in Beijing, to gather first-hand information on students' waste source separation behavior and its influential factors. The survey received a total of 509 valid respondents. Results showed that 47% of the college students mixed all the MSWs at source, which is very similar to their surrounding friends (43%) but much higher than their parents (27%). Nearly 90% of the respondents can make a correct separation of food waste, but the accuracy rate for waste drugs (76%), waste textiles (73%), waste batteries (69%), and waste electrics (54%) is much lower. Special attention needs to be given to distinguishing recyclables and hazardous wastes. For the testing of five influential factor hypotheses, HP1, HP3, and HP4 can be accepted, and HP2 and HP5 can be partly accepted. Students that are more likely to actively participate in waste source separation are: female; have more awareness of waste damage consequences and are willing to make more practical efforts; have more knowledge on proper waste classification; have surrounding friends that do waste source separation; and have better perceptions of the convenience of waste separation systems and the university's waste management processes. Five measures are also recommended for improving students' behavior based on this investigation.