Joanne Vining

What Makes a Recycler?: A Comparison of Recyclers and Nonrecyclers

Knowledge and motivational factors represent important but neglected topics in the study of recycling behavior. This article examines differences in knowledge, motives, and demographic characteristics of people who have the opportunity to recycle voluntarily. Information on these variables was obtained for 197 households in Illinois. The results indicated that recyclers in general were more aware of publicity about recycling and more knowledgeable about materials that were recyclable in the local area and the means for recycling these materials than were nonrecyclers. While both recyclers and nonrecyclers were motivated by concerns for the environment, non-recyclers were more concerned with financial incentives to recycle, rewards for recycling, and with matters of personal convenience. Few demographic characteristics distinguished recyclers from nonrecyclers.

REDUCING SOLID WASTE : LINKING RECYCLING TO ENVIRONMENTALLY RESPONSIBLE CONSUMERISM

A survey of several communities was conducted to investigate the public’s response to solid waste issues. This study examines the relation between respondents’ beliefs about environmentally responsible consumerism and environmental attitudes, motives, and self-reported recycling behavior. The study addressed (a) the public’s perception of environment-related product attributes; (b) a sociodemographic characterization of environmentally concerned consumers; and (c) the depiction of the relations between attitudes, motives, recycling behavior, and environmental consumerism. The results indicated that respondents were most concerned about product toxicity and least concerned about product packaging. The data showed that only age and gender were predictive of respondents’ ratings. Several measures of general environmental concern, recycling attitudes, and recycling motives were found to be related to both categories of product attributes; when the measures were examined in combination, different measures were found to be related to each category. Respondents’ self-reported recycling behaviors were found to be related to source reduction and recycling.

How Similar are Recycling and Waste Reduction? Future Orientation and Reasons for Reducing Waste As Predictors of Self-Reported Behavior

The present research examined the relations between people’s self-reported recycling and waste reduction behaviors, their reasons or justifications for engaging in these behaviors, and their future orientation. The most engaging results of the project pertained to the observed relations between the consideration of future consequences and respondents’ self-reported recycling and waste-reduction behavior. The findings indicate that respondents’ concern for the future and their ratings of the importance of various justifications were related to recycling behaviors in a consistent manner. The relations between the same predictors and waste-reduction behaviors, however, were more complex. The findings also revealed that respondents’ tendencies to engage in waste-reduction behaviors were unrelated to their tendencies to recycle; that is, persons who perform one set of behaviors are not necessarily likely to perform the other. Some practical implications of these findings are also presented for developers of programs designed to increase public awareness of the need to reduce waste.

Toward a phenomenology of recreation place.

Abstract This study uses a process-tracing methodology to examine qualitative aspects of the person-place relationship. Eighteen participants completed a series of decisions concerning intentions to visit outdoor recreation sites. Each participant ‘thought-aloud’ during the decision-making process and described thoughts and feelings that influenced their decisions. The resulting verbal transcripts were content analysed and revealed that specific qualities of landscape infuse a site with a sense of place for some individuals. Significantly different life-worlds became apparent as some participants identified with natural pristine places whereas others identified with developed places. Past experience heavily influenced decisions as places were sensed as a combination of setting, landscape, ritual, routine and in the context of other places. Implications for future research and natural recreation site management are discussed.

Environmental Emotions and Decisions A Comparison of the Responses and Expectations of Forest Managers, an Environmental Group, and the Public

Independent samples of forest managers, members of an environmental group, and a regional public constituency were asked either to respond to a hypothetical forest management problem or to predict how a member of one of the other groups would respond. Decisions and emotions of the environmental group and public sample were similar to each other but both differed from those of the managers. Decisions were predicted accurately by all three groups, but managers and environmental group members perceived the public sample to be less emotional than it actually was. These results are interpreted in terms of a functional model of emotion and environmental decision making, and implications for public involvement programs are discussed.

Why Recycle? A Comparison of Recycling Motivations in Four Communities

Four Illinois communities with different sociode-mographic compositions and at various stages of planning for solid waste management were surveyed to determine the influence of sociodemographic variables and planning stages on the factors that motivate recycling behavior. A factor analysis of importance ratings of reasons for recycling and for not recycling yielded five factors interpreted as altruism, personal inconvenience, social influences, economic incentives, and household storage. The four communities were shown to be significantly different in multivariate analyses of the five motivational factors. However, attempts to explain these community differences with regression analyses, which predicted the motivational factors with dummy codes for planning stages, a measure of self-reported recycling behavior, and sociodemographic measures were unsatisfactory. Contrary to expectation, the solid waste management planning stages of the cities (curbside pickup, recycling dropoff center, and planning in progress) contributed only very slightly to the prediction of motivational factors for recycling. Community differences were better explained by different underlying motivational structures among the four communities. Altruistic reasons for recycling (e.g., conserving resources) composed the only factor which was similar across the four communities. This factor was also perceived to be the most important reason for recycling by respondents from all four communities. The results of the study supported the notion that convenient, voluntary recycling programs that rely on environmental concern and conscience for motivation are useful approaches to reducing waste.

The Effect of Street Trees on Perceived Values of Residential Property

Recently sold suburban residential properties in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, were identified via a real estate agents multiple listing service (MLS). The residences were photographed from the street, the photos digitized to create computer files and then computer video-simulation techniques used to add three different size-class trees to the images. Public groups evaluated the individual color slide images for their expected property value and perceived attractiveness. Judged property value and attractiveness were highly correlated with the MLS recorded sales price. Tree size was not a main effect with either evaluation. For more expensive properties there was a slight increase in value for the addition of smaller trees, but a decrease associated with large trees. For less expensive properties there was no significant effect of tree presence or size. There were no effects related to subject group demographics. The results suggest the need for more caution in ascribing economic value to suburban street trees and for more research into the processes people use in weighing the risks and benefits of tree plantings. The image-editing method used in this quasi-experiment proved useful in allowing the easy manipulation of the study variable.

Are you thinking what i think you are? a study of actual and estimated goal priorities and decision preferences of resource managers, environmentalists, and the public

Abstract Although public and interest group input to resource management policy and decisions is considered valuable and is ojien legally mandated, interactions between these groups and government agencies and officials are often marked by conflict and animosity. We examined two potential sources of conflict among these groups: differences among the decision preferences and values of resource managers, members of an environmental group, and the public; and discrepancies between the groups’ perceptions of each others goal priorities or decision preferences and the actual responses. In general, the results provide evidence for a gulf not only between the actual responses of the three groups, but also between actual and expected responses. This indicates that finding a balance between the concerns of public and special interest groups and management mandates will involve not only assessing the positions of the three groups but also actively resolving discrepancies between expectations for others’ responses ...

An evaluation of the public response to a community recycling education program

Abstract Conserving resources and reducing the volume of garbage that must be incinerated or stored in landfills through recycling has become a major priority for many communities. Educational campaigns are often used to inform the public and induce recycling behavior. However, research evaluating the success of these campaigns has focused primarily on recycling behavior and not on cognitive factors such as awareness or motivation which may precede or accompany the behavior. This study evaluated the effects of a recycling education campaign on residents’ knowledge of recycling issues, motives to recycle, and recycling behavior. Residents of a Midwestern community were surveyed before and after implementation of a three‐year recycling education program. A comparison of pre‐ and post‐program survey results indicated that residents’ knowledge of recycling issues was more accurate, their motives reflected greater concern for the environment, and their recycling behavior increased after the education campaign.

Environmental decisions: The interaction of emotions, information, and decision context*

Abstract Emotionality in environmental decisions arises from a complex interaction among the characteristics of the environmental planning problem, the attributes of the decider, and the situation in which decisions occur. The research reported here examines problem and situational characteristics which may influence emotional reactions and decision outcomes. Descriptions of one resource management problem were varied in a two-by-two-by-four factorial design with two writing styles (‘hot’ emotional and ‘cold’ objective), two decision contexts, and differential emphasis on four development and preservation issues. Subjects read a problem description, described, and evaluated a decision, placed the decision on a preservation-development continuum, and rated their emotionality on 42 scale items. Pro-development issue emphases resulted in more development decisions and lower decision confidence than did pro-preservation emphases. A trend for preservation decisions was found in response to the hot writing style. These results indicate that environmental decisions may be very sensitive to relatively subtle differences in the way information is presented. Emotions varied with the context in which decisions were made. Subjects who rated their emotions before making decisions had higher levels of negative emotion than those who made decisions before rating emotional reactions. Also, negative emotions were associated with preservation decisions. In order to understand better the role of emotion in environmental decisions, further studies of decision processes, behavioral consequences, individual differences, and a broader array of other environmental problems are needed.