Mediating mechanisms and urban diversity: How environmental risk perception shapes recycling behavior in China's megacities.

Mandatory recycling policies in China's megacities have had varying degrees of effectiveness, revealing a persistent gap between policy goals and actual public participation. Using a "perception-to-action" framework integrating environmental risk perception into the theory of planned behavior, this study quantitatively evaluated the psychological drivers of 4,983 urban residents. The findings demonstrate that the psychological mechanism driving recycling is not universal, with this heterogeneity being caused by two important factors: (1) an "infrastructure ceiling effect," where the influence of perceived behavioral control on behavior diminishes as urban infrastructure matures; and (2) "demographic divergence," where age, education, and income systematically alter the dominant psychological pathways from risk perception to action. Ultimately, effective urban recycling governance requires an abandonment of one-size-fits-all campaigns and should, instead, adopt "precision governance" that precisely targets social norms while adapting to the life cycle of urban infrastructure and the distinct psychological profiles of its residents.