Understanding Paper Recycling in an Institutionally Supportive Setting: An Application of the Theory of Reasoned Action

The Ajzen and Fishbein theory of reasoned action is employed to predict levels of paper recycling and to identify the socio-psychological factors which influence performance of this action. The faculty of a medium-sized northwestern public university where recycling opportunities are institution­ ally supported and convenient served as the survey population. The results lend strong support overall to the theory and demonstrate its utility for predicting and understanding individual actions such as source separationrecycling which could reduce environmental pollution and natural resource depletion. SOCIAL AND ECOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS OF THE PROBLEM The problems of resource depletion, pollution, paper consumption, and paper waste are serious and inseparable. While world waste paper consumption doubled between 1965 and 1982, recycling rates increased by only 4 percent, from 20 percent in 1965 to 24 percent in 1982 [1]. On the national level, during an average seventy-year lifetime, an average American will use directly or indirectly more than 19 tons of paper or approximately 600 pounds of paper per year [2, 3]. This rate of paper consumption is about nine times the world's average, and about forty-six times the rate in less developed nations—and results in millions of trees being cut down annually to satisfy the demand for paper products in the United States [2]. Yet the United States has one of the lowest recovery rates for paper