Recycle behavior of agricultural film (RBAF) plays an important role in protecting the ecological environment of farmland. Improving RBAF has become an urgent choice for agricultural countries to achieve sustainable development. Construction of high-standard farmland (CHSF) is defined as the artificial improvement of farmland facilities and considered beneficial to agricultural production and farmland environment. This study aims to evaluate the role of CHSF in improving RBAF. Based on survey data of rural areas in Sichuan, China, this study explores quantitative impacts of CHSF on RBAF by econometric model. The results are as follows: (1) There is a positive impact of CHSF on RBAF, i.e., compared with the farmers not participating in CHSF, the possibility of RBAF for the farmers participating in CHSF is increased by 16%. (2) For every 1% increase in the proportion of agricultural labor force in households, the possibility of RBAF is increased by 0.2%. Thus, this study indicates that governments should focus on improving rural infrastructure to help farmers improve their behavior towards environmental protection.

The mental health crisis poses a major challenge to global sustainable development. In response, the United Nations has launched an ambitious plan to “reshape the environment that affects mental health”. Clean toilets are an important measure of civilization, yet it is unclear whether they are helping to alleviate the global mental health crisis. Therefore, using data from a large sample of rural Chinese households and introducing an instrumental variables approach based on the IV-Tobit model to address endogeneity, this study quantitatively discusses that clean latrines have a positive effect on the mental health of farm households. The results showed the following: (1) 89.8% of Chinese rural households had clean toilets, while the average farm household depression index was 12.568; and (2) clean toilets helped to improve the mental health of farmers, which means that the depression index of farmers with clean toilets decreased by 66.9% compared to farmers without clean toilets. The findings of this study can inform the development of policies to mitigate the global mental health crisis and contribute to the resilience of global development.