Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Waste Management in Agroecosystems
Volume 8 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2024.1435898
This article is part of the Research Topic Agri-Food Waste Utilization for Sustainable Future: Challenges and Opportunities View all 9 articles

Composting Behavior in Japan: An Application of the Theory of Consumption Values

Provisionally accepted
  • Kobe University, Kobe, Japan

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Ensuring effective and sustainable ways of dealing with organic waste is a critical issue worldwide. Due to land restrictions, reducing, reusing, and recycling food waste becomes an even more prominent problem in countries like Japan. The present research used the Theory of Consumption Values (TCV) to understand the main factors that lead Japanese people to engage in household composting. The hypotheses were tested via an Ordinal Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (OrdPLS). The model results suggest that home composting in Japan is bound to social approval (social value), behavior visibility and current knowledge about the process (epistemic value), convenience (functional value), gardening/farming interest, and a person's availability to engage in it (conditional value). Emotions (emotional value), gender, house type, and household size were not statistically significant for household composting. Positive and negative functional aspects of composting significantly influence the convenience perception that a person holds towards the behavior. Thus, they were found to have an indirect effect on the choice of composting. The findings suggest that providing ongoing training and support, enhancing convenience, and integrating household composting with urban farms, community gardens, or public spaces may boost adoption even among non-gardeners.

    Keywords: food systems, Food waste, Waste Management, composting, Japan, behavioral models, Theory of Consumption Values (TCV), Ordinal Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (OrdPLS)

    Received: 21 May 2024; Accepted: 19 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Morais and Ishida. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Ana Catarina Morais, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.