Waste Separation in Cafeterias: A Study among University Students in the Netherlands

DOI

Recycling waste is important to reduce the production of greenhouse gasses. The aim of this project was to understand determinants of cafeteria waste separation behavior among university students. First, the determinants of waste separation behavior among university students (n = 121) were explored using an online questionnaire. In study 2 (pre-/post-test design), the effect of a small intervention (based on study 1) on actual waste sorting behavior was observed. Finally, a semi-qualitative study in 59 students was conducted as process evaluation of the intervention. The following results were revealed: (1) Students have limited knowledge about waste separation, have a high intention to separate waste, are positive about waste separation in general, and believe that they can separate waste correctly. (2) Just over half of the waste is correctly recycled. An intervention with extra information had no significant effect on improving recycling behavior. (3) Students evaluated the intervention positively. Some students suggested that more information should be available where the actual decision making takes place. Ultimately, this paper concludes that although students have a positive attitude and are willing to behave pro-environmentally, there is a gap between intention and actual behavior. These results may also apply to other organizations and members of those organizations. New interventions are needed to trigger students to make correct waste separation decisions where the actual decision making takes place.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.34894/YMLHMD
Metadata Access https://dataverse.nl/oai?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_datacite&identifier=doi:10.34894/YMLHMD
Provenance
Creator Árnadóttir, Ágústa D.; Kok, Gerjo ORCID logo; van Gils, Suzanne ORCID logo; ten Hoor, Gill ORCID logo
Publisher DataverseNL
Contributor ten Hoor, Gill; faculty data manager FPN
Publication Year 2020
Rights info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess
OpenAccess false
Contact ten Hoor, Gill (Maastricht University); faculty data manager FPN (Maastricht University)
Representation
Resource Type experimental data; Dataset
Format application/zip; application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
Size 76931; 101567; 33563
Version 1.0
Discipline Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Aquaculture; Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Aquaculture and Veterinary Medicine; Life Sciences; Social Sciences; Social and Behavioural Sciences; Soil Sciences