Estimating the effects of joining cooperatives on farmers' recycling behaviors of pesticide packaging waste: insights from apple farmers of China

The improper disposal of pesticide packaging wastes (PPW) has posed serious harm to the environment, including groundwater and soil pollution and even health concerns to the public. To address the environmental concerns and public health issues, there is a need to recycle the pesticides packaging waste (RPPW). Though small fanners in many developing countries have joined the cooperatives to reduce the production costs and increase the product premium, how these cooperatives improve fanners' RPPW behaviors is still sparse. The current study used data collected from 725 apple farmers in Shaanxi and Gansu provinces of China to explore the phenomenon empirically. Recycling decisions and degree are used to portray the farmers' RPPW behaviors. Firstly, the Logit model was used to analyze the effect of joining cooperatives on farmers recycling decisions. Further, to address the sample selection bias, the present study employed the propensity score matching (PSM) method for empirical analysis concerning the effect of joining cooperatives on farmers' recycling degree. Results showed that joining cooperatives positively and significantly influences farmers' recycling decisions. If farmers join a cooperative, the probability of the recycling decisions and degree will increase by 20.30% and 27.50%, respectively. Moreover, it is also found that some other factors such as education level, environmental and public health risk perception, peer effect, and relationship network also significantly influence farmers' recycling decisions. Moreover, considering the differences in fanners' gender, age, and educational attainment. the study unveiled the heterogeneous effects of joining cooperatives on farmers' RPPW behaviors. The findings revealed that gender and age variables have noticeable masking effects while education level has a typical threshold effect. The overall findings provided insights for policymakers to emphasize the development of agricultural cooperatives, improve the risk and interest linkage mechanism, and build the RPPW system. These implications are also supportive for policymakers in other developing countries.