National parks should utilize waste reduction communication strategies that acknowledge moral norms and perceived difficulty

In the past few years, national parks in the United States have experienced an increased number of visitors, and with that, the amount of waste has also increased. Research has focused on identifying ways to reduce littering behavior by park visitors. However, little research has been conducted on visitors' waste generation, proper waste disposal, or the drivers of visitor behaviors around waste management. This study used visitor surveys to determine what factors influence waste generation and disposal behaviors to help inform future management strategies.

In this study, visitor surveys were completed at three frequently visited national parks where the Zero Landfill Initiative (ZLI) was implemented. The ZLI aims to reduce waste in national parks and decrease waste sent to landfills. Surveys were completed by 2,722 participants at Yosemite, Grand Teton, and Denali National Parks over three months in the summer of 2017. The survey tool was created through collaboration between park officials and researchers, and drew from the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to identify potential drivers of waste reduction behaviors. TPB recognizes intention to act stems from attitudes, norms, and perceived behavioral control, and that intention can predict behavior. The survey included questions to assess five variables: perceived difficulty, self-efficacy, knowledge, attitudes, and moral norms towards waste generation and disposal. The responses were then analyzed to predict what led to increased waste reduction behaviors of guests.

With the results the researchers aimed to create a statistical model to represent the relationship between the five variables and waste reduction behaviors so that park officials might develop effective communication strategies to reduce waste in the parks. The two variables determined to most influence behavioral intentions were perceived difficulty and moral norms. Perceived difficulty relates to the convenience and ease of waste disposal. Moral norms measure how much respondents connect waste reduction behaviors to broader conservation outcomes like protecting environmental health. Results also indicated that the participants already had a predisposition to engage in environmentally friendly behaviors despite a low awareness of ZLI. Perceived difficulty additionally had a larger effect on waste-related behaviors in the park, indicating a need for infrastructure changes at national parks.

This study was limited by the number of participants and few sample locations. Generalizations of the applications of this study to other national park locations should be avoided due to the geographic differences.

Based on the results that suggested moral norms strongly influence behaviors, researchers recommend including messages in parks to reinforce visitors' internal sense of doing good for the environment to promote waste reduction behaviors. Messaging, for example, could promote that recycling is the “right thing to do”. Additionally, more emphasis should be placed on reducing the difficulty of waste disposal. Parks should spend time increasing access to waste infrastructure and simplifying the process to help visitors engage in pro-environment actions.