The rapid increase in urbanization has given rise to the need of proper waste management. Within municipal waste, the plastic waste is a growing concern which is causing severe harm to our ecosystem. If ignored, this problem will have harmful effects on both human and wildlife. Therefore, this study aims to find out the factors that influence the recycling behavior patterns of consumers regarding plastic waste. The variables from the theory of planned behavior were adopted to study the behavior of consumers toward recycling plastic waste. The data was collected from 243 residents of Karachi-metropolitan city of Pakistan. The partial least square-structural equation modelling was applied to analyze the data. The findings of the current study reveal that different consumers' attributes and attitudes trigger different types of recycling behavior when it comes to waste disposal. Pressure from family and friends and perceived behavioral control trigger the behavior of reselling the waste plastic products while consumer's awareness of consequences and personal attitude toward proper waste disposal leads to reuse or donating that product to someone who can use that plastic product. The understanding of these consumer attributes may help to shape the behavioral outcomes in order to manage waste disposal. This study will be beneficial for business managers looking to improve reverse logistics as well as government/municipal policy makers and academics/researchers who are interested in a solution-oriented study.
Indole-3-acetamides (1-24) were synthesized via coupling of indole-3-acetic acid with various substituted anilines in the presence of coupling reagent 1,1-carbonyldiimidazole. The structures of synthetic molecules were elucidated through different spectroscopic techniques including electron ionization-mass spectroscopy (EI-MS), 1H-, 13C NMR, and high-resolution EI-MS (HREI-MS). These compounds were screened for their antihyperglycemic and antioxidant potentials. All compounds displayed good to moderate inhibition against α-amylase enzyme with IC50 values ranging between 1.09 ± 0.11 and 2.84 ± 0.1 μM compared to the standard acarbose (IC50 = 0.92 ± 0.4 μM). Compound 15 (IC50 = 1.09 ± 0.11 μM) was the most active compound of the series and exhibited good inhibition against α-amylase; in addition, this compound also exhibited good antioxidant potential with IC50 values of 0.35 ± 0.1 and 0.81 ± 0.25 μM in 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl-hydrate (DPPH) and 2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) assays, respectively. The binding interactions of synthetic molecules with the enzyme's active site were confirmed via in silico studies. The current study had identified a number of lead molecules as potential antihyperglycemic and antioxidant agents.