Previous studies have dedicated great efforts in elucidating the key factors on e-waste recycling intentions, however, most of them did not involve the discrepancy between recycling intention and actual recycling behavior. This study aims to explore the intention-behavior discrepancy and the role of consumers’ price sensitivity and proactive personality in the intention-behavior transformation toward recycling obsolete mobile phone. Results from a questionnaire survey administered in Jiangsu province confirmed the recycling intention-behavior discrepancy. In terms of focused psychological factors, the results showed that the dimension of “price importance” in price sensitivity has a negative moderating effect (β =  −0.135, p  < 0.05) on the recycling intention-behavior relationship, while the dimension of “price comparison” has a positive moderating effect (β = 0.095, p  < 0.05) on the relationship between implementation intention and recycling behavior. Proactive personality positively moderates (β = 0.228, p  < 0.001) the recycling intention-behavior relationship. A series of measures are then proposed to encourage consumers’ recycling behavior of obsolete mobile phones, including vigorously creating a more favorable atmosphere to help individuals overcome the external obstacles in recycling, further increasing formal recycling reward and enhancing consumers’ perceived value of formal recycling service, etc.