Prof. Pei-Ming Zheng's group at School of Life Sciences, Shandong University has made new progress in the field of sustainable management of household solid waste (HSW). The study entitled "Key factors influencing public awareness of household solid waste recycling in urban areas of China: a case study" was published in the Resources, Conservation & Recycling (IF: 7.044). Dr. Hui Wang is the first author, and Prof. Pei-Ming Zheng is the corresponding author. This is another significant achievement of this group following the publications in the Journal of Cleaner Production (2017 published, IF: 7.051) and Applied Energy (2018 published, IF: 8.558).

With rapid economic development, population growth, and urbanization, HSW causes environmental pollution and health threats to residents, and at the same time leads to waste of recyclable resources. As a sustainable waste management method, it is imperative to establish a waste recycling and treatment system that includes sorting delivery, sorting collection, sorting transportation and sorting treatment. As a major player in waste sorting and recycling, public awareness of the need to sort and recycle is critical. However, there is still a lack of in-depth and systematic discussion on the public awareness of HSW recycling and it’s influencing factors in China. In the present study, an on-site face-to-face questionnaire survey was the main research tool. For the first time, the public’s awareness of the sorting and recycling of household waste was investigated in 10 representative cities across the country, including public behavior, recycling knowledge and public willingness to participate. The results show that public awareness of HSW recycling in China is insufficient reflecting in environmentally irresponsible public behavior and inadequate public recycling knowledge. Age is the most important sociodemographic factor influencing the public awareness of the classification and recycling of domestic waste. At the same time, occupation, education level, and income level also have an important impact on daily behavior, knowledge recovery, and willingness to participate. Therefore, it is recommended to carry out targeted publicity and education of HSW sorting and recycling in specific population groups to improve work efficiency. The scientific information provided by this study may contribute to HSW recycling especially from a public awareness perspective.

The Pei-Ming Zheng's group published a paper on the sustainable management of HSW waste in the Journal of Cleaner Production in 2017, entitled "The door-to-door recycling scheme of household solid wastes in urban areas: a case study from Nagoya, Japan", Dr. Pei-Ming Zheng wasthe first author. This study analyzed the Japanese HSW recycling system based on the SWOT approach, and clarified the advantages (opportunities) and disadvantages (threats) of the system, and put forward targeted policy recommendations. This achievement would have asignificant impact onthe further improvement of China's HSW waste management.

In recent years, Chinese government has focused on the sorting, recycling and resource utilization of HSW waste. The recycling system is an effective way to achieve sustainable management of HSW in China. The Zheng's group focus on the major ecological environment issues, and has made a series of progress in recycling and sustainable management of resources. Since 2017, they have published a series of papers in high-level international journals in the field of ecological environment, such as Journal of Cleaner Production, Applied Energy and Resources, Conservation and Recycling.