SHORT RESEARCH AND DISCUSSION ARTICLE Assessing young consumers’ awareness and participation in sustainable e-waste management practices: a survey study in Northwest China Sidra Ramzan 1 & ChenGuang Liu 1 & Hina Munir 1 & Yan Xu 1 Received: 16 February 2019 /Accepted: 26 April 2019 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract The massive generation of electronic waste (e-waste) and the informal recycling of e-waste are serious concerns in China. As a hazardous waste stream, e-waste calls for sustainable management practices to avoid adverse effects on environment and health. However, consumers’ awareness and active participation are needed to make e-waste management successful. Therefore, this study is an exploratory attempt to investigate young consumer awareness, knowledge, and participation in sustainable e-waste manage- ment practices. Meanwhile, the study reviews the current situation of e-waste recycling, its related legislative framework, and practices in China. The survey revealed that the respondents have keen environmental consciousness, while they have low aware- ness about e-waste-related rules and regulations, recycling programs, and the formal and informal recycling sector. The findings provide valuable insights for practitioners in order to promote environmental awareness and sustainable e-waste management practices among young consumers in China. Keywords E-waste management . Environmental awareness . Sustainable practices . Informal recycling . China Introduction Electronic waste (e-waste) refers to end-of-life electronics, in- clude all components, subassemblies, and consumables, such as IT and communications equipment, small, large, and temperature exchange equipment, lamps, and screens that are discarded by users with no more intention to re-use (Wang et al. 2017; Balde et al. 2015). Over the past decades, the consumption of electron- ics has increased enormously due to rapid economic growth, high demand for information and communication technologies, tech- nology advancement, and short lifespan of electronics (Borthakur and Govind 2018; Fraige et al. 2012). They all pro- duced huge amount of e-waste that become a global apprehen- sion in terms of environmental protection and resource recycling (Zeng et al. 2017a). Globally, the estimated amount of e-waste in 2016 was 44.7 million tons, and only a small portion of e-waste is recycled through formal recycling channels (Balde et al. 2017). In response to proper e-waste management, developed countries put in place the legislation and formal structure that mandates the producers and distributors to facilitate the consumers to dispose of e-waste responsibly (Kumar 2019). At present, proper e-waste management has become even more serious concern in develop- ing countries (Awasthi and Li 2018). Only 5% of e-waste reaches to formal recycling sector (environmentally sound), and the re- maining 95% of e-waste is either resold or treated by informal recycling sector (include peddlers, scrap dealers, and private workshops) (Awasthi and Li 2017). Apart from transboundary shipments, China, the second larg- est e-waste producer, solely generated 7.2 million tons of e-waste in Asia and worldwide (Balde et al. 2017). The vast majority of e-waste is treated through environmentally unfriendly ways due to the dominance of informal recycling sector in China. Above 60% of generated e-waste is flowing into the informal recycling Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues * ChenGuang Liu liuc@nwpu.edu.cn Sidra Ramzan sidraramzan91@yahoo.com Hina Munir hinamunir@mail.nwpu.edu.cn Yan Xu yanxu@nwpu.edu.cn 1 School of Management, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China Environmental Science and Pollution Research https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-05310-y