What a load of rubbish! The efficacy of theory of planned behaviour and norm activation model in predicting visitors’ binning behaviour in national parks

Abstract

A specific concern for many park managers is the generation of waste by visitors. One way to combat this issue in national parks is to encourage visitors to put their litter in a bin. This study investigates binning behaviour, as a type of pro-environmental behaviour, of visitors to Yanchep National Park, Australia. Using structural equation modelling, this study tested an integrated structural model combining the theory of planned behaviour and the norm-activation model with data from 219 visitors to this park. The study tried to move away from measuring visitors' pro-environmental intention and instead gathered data based on their current behaviour (i.e. visitors' on-site binning behaviour). The results revealed a good fit of the survey data to the model which explained 55.9% of the variance in binning behaviour. Furthermore, the finding has demonstrated the efficacy of combining the norm activation model with the theory of planned behaviour in explaining visitors' binning behaviour. This highlighted the role of personal norms as the key driver of binning behaviour among visitors to Yanchep National Park. Therefore, park administrators should strengthen and activate visitors’ salient personal norms. Findings of this study assist in better understanding how park administrators can promote binning behaviour based on an effective framework.