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Abstract: Digital transformation, smart city construction, waste classification, and low-carbon governance have accelerated the diffusion of smart recycling bins in China. Although these facilities are often treated as technical or operational tools for waste management, their success also depends on whether users perceive them as useful, easy to use, trustworthy, and socially meaningful. Based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), this study examines the acceptance mechanism of Chinese users with actual use experience of smart recycling bin services. The model integrates perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived risk, user characteristics, and user citizenship. Data were collected through an online questionnaire administered via Wenjuanxing. After excluding invalid responses, 586 valid questionnaires were analyzed with SPSS 27.0 and AMOS 26.0. Descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, structural equation modeling, and multi-group moderation analysis were conducted. The results indicate that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are significantly and positively associated with both attitude and satisfaction. Perceived risk is significantly and negatively associated with attitude and satisfaction, suggesting that concerns about system malfunction, privacy leakage, reward uncertainty, and service reliability remain important barriers. User characteristics show differentiated relationships: environmental sustainability consciousness and personal innovativeness are positively associated with attitude, while subjective green knowledge is not significantly related to attitude; all three user characteristic factors are positively associated with satisfaction. Attitude is significantly related to satisfaction and usage intention, and satisfaction is further related to usage intention. User citizenship moderates only the satisfaction-to-usage-intention path. The study extends TAM to green digital infrastructure and offers practical implications for strengthening user experience, risk communication, and public-value engagement in smart recycling services.
 

Keywords: Smart recycling bins; Smart collection bins; Technology Acceptance Model; Perceived risk; User citizenship; Satisfaction; Usage intention; Green digital governance