How does environmental education affect college students' waste sorting behavior: A heterogeneity analysis based on...

Waste pollution has become an inevitable problem in the agglomeration and development of urbanization. As the next generation of society, the waste sorting behavior of college students is becoming more and more important. Existing studies have preliminarily found that environmental education is an essential factor affecting college students' individual behavior, but there are few studies on the heterogeneity of their educational background and the influencing mechanism. By the survey data of 1653 Chinese postgraduate, undergraduate and junior college students, Oprobit model and intermediary effect model were used to verify the main effect and its mechanism. And the moderating effect model was used to examine the role of COVID-19 risk perception in it. Instrumental variables are also used to overcome the endogeneity problem. The results showed that the environmental education could effectively promote the waste sorting behavior of college students. The cognition of economic value, health benefit and usability were the important mediating channels of environmental education, and the mediation effect of economic value cognition was stronger. Interestingly, this study innovatively found that risk perception of COVID-19 positively moderated the impact of the cognition. And we also found that junior college students received more college environmental education, and their cognition of economic value, health benefit, and usability of waste sorting behavior were higher than those of postgraduate and undergraduates, and they were most affected by environmental education. In addition, there was a significant correlation between college students' awareness of their own health after COVID-19, whether they joined the ecological environment association and their individual waste sorting behavior, and provides some enlightenment and experience for policymakers and university teachers in various countries to promote ecological and environmental protection education. Finally, this paper provides some enlightenment and experience for the government and universities to promote environmental protection education.