Abstract
Demand for materials is increasing, along with the environmental damage associated with material extraction, processing transport and waste management. While many people state they recycle at home, adoption of sustainable waste practices in the workplace and other contexts (particularly, on holiday) is often lower. Understanding how to promote more sustainable behaviors (including, but also going beyond, recycling) across a range of contexts remains a key challenge for policy-makers and researchers. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) has been applied to a range of environmentally-friendly behaviors but the relative importance of the model's predictors has not yet been explored across a range of contexts. Here, we test the TPB across workplace (laboratory and office), home and holiday contexts, and examine whether consistency across contexts is a function of pro-environmental identity. Following ten semi-structured interviews, we undertook an online survey with laboratory workers (primarily in the UK; N = 213) to examine the predictors of recycling and waste reduction habits across these contexts. Interview findings indicate a range of motivations and barriers to recycling in the workplace, and inconsistency across home and work behaviors. Expanding the focus to include holiday as well as workplace and home contexts, our survey analysis shows that the proportion of waste recycled in the home is higher (67%) than in the workplace (39%) and on holiday (38%). Further, the TPB explained around twice as much variance in home recycling compared to work or holiday recycling; but overall did not provide a good explanation for recycling. The study highlights the importance of both contextual (e.g., facilities) and individual (e.g., identity) factors in shaping waste behaviors. We find significant correlations amongst different waste reduction behaviors within and between contexts, though within-context (e.g., home) behaviors are generally more strongly related. Future research should move beyond the TPB to expand the range of contextual (e.g., organizational) factors explored in contexts beyond the home, including workplace and holiday contexts. Given the different drivers-of and barriers-to waste reduction within and between contexts, a range of interventions will be required to promote recycling, reduction and reuse behaviors across these contexts.
Highlights
Demand for materials is increasing, along with the environmental damage associated with material extraction, processing transport and waste management (Allwood et al, 2011)
This paper aims to expand the behavioral and situational scope of waste reduction behavior research, which has largely focussed on recycling in the domestic context
Our qualitative interviews showed that attitudes to recycling are largely positive, though there are barriers to translating intentions into action, as others have previously noted (e.g., Tudor et al, 2007)
Summary
Waste Reduction BehaviorsDemand for materials is increasing, along with the environmental damage associated with material extraction, processing transport and waste management (Allwood et al, 2011). While public awareness of waste-related problems (e.g., marine pollution) is growing (e.g., Hartley et al, 2018) and recycling rates are increasing in many countries (Eurostat, 2018), there has been less progress in reduce and reuse behaviors (Whitmarsh et al, 2011). While businesses and governments need to play a part in reducing waste, a significant role can be played by individuals across the various contexts in which they consume and use materials. About the predictors of waste reduction behaviors in different settings (e.g., home, workplace) or how consistent individuals are across settings in this respect. Though, suggests there is likely to be significant variation across contexts; for example, between the workplace and home (Tudor et al, 2008). Understanding how to promote more sustainable behaviors (including, and going beyond, recycling) across a range of contexts remains a key challenge for policy-makers and researchers
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