Sociodemographic variables and their influence on recycling behaviour: an analysis of the Spanish context in the framework of Theory of Planned Behaviour.

The World Bank warns that the annual global generation of garbage will increase to 3.4 billion tons in the next 30 years. Rapid urbanization and population growth are the main factors of this problem and pose a challenge in environmental terms. In order to respond to this challenge, initiatives are required to improve resource management. To this end, many groups and institutions around the world are devoting their efforts to promoting pro-environmental values. Entities such as Ecoembes, in the Spanish context, work to raise awareness and sensitize citizens on the responsible consumption of packaging, as well as to develop increasingly efficient waste management systems to deal with this over-generation of waste. To improve the efficient of systems, one of the key pieces of the equation is precisely the recycling behaviour of the citizen. For this reason, it is considered essential to study the factors that affect pro-environmental behaviour, specifically recycling behaviour. Thus, according to the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), the motivation for action is influenced by factors of diverse nature such as values, social norms, attitudes towards recycling or perceived behavioural control, among others. Therefore, the main aim of this research is to study the recycling behaviour of Spanish citizens to identify the geographical areas in which different types of recycling behaviour occur. To this end, we analyse available historical data by Ecoembes (in terms of packaging) studying the impact of socio-demographic variables on different patterns of behaviours. Finally, we present our conclusions and theoretical and practical implication within the framework of the TPB.