Factors Influencing Household Recycling Behavior

Conducted telephone interviews to study the recycling behavior, attitudes, and knowledge of 221 adults in a suburban city that had begun a citywide curbside recycling program within the past year. About 40% of the Ss reported participation in the program, and 58% claimed that their household had been recycling in other ways. Most demographic variables and general environmental attitudes and behaviors did not predict participation in the program; however, simple conservation knowledge did. The main significant predictors of curbside recycling were living in a single-family house, owning one's home, recycling by friends and neighbors, acknowledgment of environmental problems, and intrinsic motives to recycle.