Making Agenda 21 Work: Recycling Behaviour in Oxfordshire
This project arose out of interest in the relation of Agenda 21 to local issues such as municipal wastes recycling, an environmental issue that had gained considerable currency before the inception of the global sustainable development initiative,. However, as the work of the EBRG subsequently came to reflect, the study was primarily interested in the links between environmental attitude, basic structural factors and reported recycling behaviour.
The study comprised a structured questionnaire delivered verbally by the researcher to pre-selected addresses in the Vale of the White Horse District of Oxfordshire, UK.
The Vale of White Horse district has maintained recycling provision for a number of years, but in the early 1990s the local authority made provision for curbside recycling which by 1997 covered approximately 75% of the district. The research was undertaken in the summer of 1997 by means of a door-to-door interview survey, using a mostly structured format. Respondents were initially sampled according to the provision of recycling offered by the local authority, ranging from "Green box and less than 1 mile from major recycling facility" to "Over 5 miles from major recycling facility". There were seven spatially defined areas. Within these sub-samples respondents were asked to answer a number of questions pertaining to their recycling behaviour, general environmental attitude, basic sociodemographic data (age, gender, education, income, family type, car access), and recycling experience. In addition two open questions were posed concerning the value of recycling and the level of provision offered by the local authority.
The research found that there was a distinct relationship between provision and recycling. Those areas that had curbside recycling facilities were also those areas with significantly higher recycling. Although seemingly an obvious point, it demonstrates a neglected theory in environmental psychology: space is important. The second most important variable, crossing all spatial boundaries, was specific knowledge of recycling facilities. Correlation's, all significant at 0.001, indicated a strong relationship between recycling and the knowledge base of respondents. The third variable not to be influenced by spatial differentiation was mobility. Within all areas recycling scores were almost halved by lack of access to a car. In the context of each area there were differences in recycling behaviour according to experience of recycling. Those respondents that had recycled before receiving a green box at the kerbside invariably had higher recycling scores at the time of survey than those whom had never recycled before. Environmental attitude was also crucial within areas of low provision. Respondents in areas without green boxes at the kerbside were more likely to recycle more if their attitude was more consistent with the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) of Dunlap and Van Liere (1978). Finally, intra-area variation in recycling behaviour was seen as being a function of the perception of the provision offered by the council. Indeed, comments concerning the design of the green boxes and the items that could be placed therein were the most frequent. Also, perception that some "richer" areas had better recycling facilities than "poorer" areas was rife in Area E, where one respondent commented that "They get all the [green] boxes round the snobbish areas". This perceptional data has been useful in constructing the current survey (see below). Comments made by respondents have qualified that other, more psychological, factors are crucial when considering recycling behaviour. Traits of altruism, societal pressure, temporal constraints, personal efficacy, and logistical barriers all came through with this data.
The survey indicated that recycling behaviour is complex. Indeed, it changed the conceptual base under which the current study is operating by putting considerable US research in to a British context.