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Even though the increasing amount of waste is one of the biggest environmental challenges we currently face, surprisingly little is known about the psychological factors of waste prevention behaviour. The purpose of the study is to examine whether students‘ waste prevention behaviour can be predicted by the Value-Belief-Norm theory. In this paper, we report results from a questionnaire study of 221 students aged from 18 to 26 years. It was found that the Value-Belief-Norm theory could indeed explain students‘ waste prevention behaviour. As expected, findings indicate that high endorsement of biospheric values is associated with a strong ecological worldview, which was related to an increased awareness of environmental consequences. Those beliefs led to stronger personal norms, which were associated with more frequent waste prevention behaviour. Understanding students‘ waste prevention behaviour and the factors predicting it is a key step that could help to reduce the amount of waste that is generated. It is particularly relevant among students because higher education environment could be an effective place to increase students‘ pro-environmental behaviour and connect this behaviour with their values, beliefs and norms.

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between environmental attitudes and recycling behaviour in primary school age, and to evaluate the role that school and parents play in the prediction of children’s attitudes and behaviour. Primary school pupils aged 8–11 years (n = 116), their parents and their class teachers participated in the study. During the structured face-to-face interviews, children answered questions about their recycling behaviour and environmental attitudes (i.e. eco-affinity and eco-awareness). Parents provided answers on their recycling behaviour, verbal modelling of the behaviour, incentives used when a child recycles waste, and environmental attitudes, while class teachers provided information about the recycling in children’s school. Structural equation models were tested with a purpose to evaluate the role of different independent variables, i.e. only school, only parental factors, or both, when predicting child recycling behaviour. Results of the study showed that children’s environmental attitudes had no significant links to their recycling behaviour. The only factor that appeared to be significant in the prediction of child behaviour was parental recycling behaviour. Furthermore, recycling in schools predicted pupils’ eco-awareness. Based on the study findings, it would be worthwhile to promote more practical training of pro-environmental behaviour, and to strengthen children’s eco-affinity.

BackgroundThe paper presents the rationale and methods of the planned systematic review to understand the effects of nature-based interventions on individuals’ environmental behaviors. There is ample evidence that experiences in nature not only enhance human well-being but also help promote people’s pro-environmentalism. Nevertheless, synthesized evidence regarding the effects of nature-based interventions on individuals’ environmental behaviors is lacking.MethodsThis protocol follows the Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols (PRISMA-P) guidelines. The planned literature search will be conducted by using APA PsycInfo, APA PsyArticles, PubMed, ERIC, Education Source, GreenFILE, OpenDissertations, Scopus, and WEB of Science. In the protocol, we present search strategies for each specific database. Data items that we will seek to obtain from the selected publications are described in detail and cover general information about included studies, information about studies’ methodology and participants, outcomes of the studies, and nature-based and comparative interventions. The outcomes will be behavioral, including aggregated and specific types of environmental behaviors, as well as reported and observed behaviors. Furthermore, the protocol provides a description of the prospective assessment of the risk of bias in both randomized and non-randomized studies. If studies appear sufficiently homogeneous, we will conduct a meta-analysis using the inverse-variance method. Details of the data synthesis are likewise provided in the paper.ResultsDissemination of the results of the planned review will be carried out via a peer-reviewed open-access journal publication.ImplicationsGiven the great need to address current environmental issues, understanding what encourages people to act pro-environmentally is critical. It is expected that the findings of the planned review will provide valuable insights for researchers, educators, and policymakers who are involved in understanding and promoting human environmental behaviors.

An extended theory of planned behaviour was used to explain children's self-reported recycling behaviour with an inclusion of parental behaviour and two background factors of child gender and social desirability. Ninety-nine pupils aged 8-11 years and one