Recycling Motivation: A look at the factors shaping recycling habits The United States generates more solid waste each year than any than any other nation. The total cost of disposing of this waste has reached nearly $75 billion annually. Only 17% of the municipal solid waste is recycled in the United States, compared with 40% in Japan and up to 60% in some Western European countries (Oskamp et al., 1995). America’s landfill system for disposing of this waste is quickly reaching its limits, and managing this waste is becoming increasingly costly and problematic. There are two solutions available for this problem: reduce the amount of waste originally generated or to increase recycling (Porter et al., 1995). In focusing on the second solution to this problem, I have chosen to investigate how factors such as a person’s age, income, gender, education, region and that region’s environmental public policy affect their attitudes and behaviors towards recycling.A key to understanding how these factors affect a person’s attitudes and behaviors towards recycling is to determine how strongly their behaviors are dependant on their attitudes. Concern about the environment has been identified, as measured in public opinion polls, as a concern of a clear majority of the American public (Guagnano & Markee, 1995). However, since the 1970’s the connection between proenvironmental attitudes and recycling attitudes has fallen to statistically insignificant levels. Because more people are recycling today, and doing so for more reasons than just altruistic concern for the environment, the relationship between general environmental concern and recycling seems to have diminished or disappeared (Schultz et al., 1995). Because of this lack of correlation we cannot use general environmental concern as a predictor of recycling behavior. However, relevant specific attitudes have consistently been found to correlate with recycling be...
