Improving Farmers’ Pesticide Packaging Waste Recycling Behavior: Using Smartphones to Access the Internet

Sustainable agricultural development is a global issue. Improper disposal of pesticide packaging waste will pose a challenge to sustainable development. An endogenous switching probit (ESP) model is used to analyze the effect of smartphone use on pesticide packaging waste recycling behavior based on data from the China Land Economic Survey (CLES) in 2020 and 2021. The result shows the following: (1) Smartphone use significantly enhances farmers’ engagement in pesticide packaging waste recycling. For farmers who use smartphones, smartphone use increases their pesticide packaging waste recycling behavior by 6.1% (significant at the 1% level) compared to those without using smartphones. (2) Smartphone use better promotes the adoption of pesticide packaging waste recycling behavior by small-scale farmers, farmers living closer to towns, and high-income farmers. The results of this study will help promote the recycling behavior of pesticide packaging waste and help the development of “Internet plus” agriculture.