Abstract
Purpose. Curbside recycling is an important policy program to turn our waste into reusable resources. Willingness to participate in such programs is a question not adequately investigated. The purpose of this study was to determine relationships between Korean-Americans' willingness to participate in Los Angeles City's curbside recycling program and family members' demographic variables, recycling by their friends and neighbors, the community's volunteer group activities, and advertising in the media. Methodology. The researcher used a correlational design in this study. In order to obtain a representative sample of the Korean minority population, 345 survey questionnaires were distributed and 198 were collected from Korean church attendees in the city. The statistical techniques used were Point-biserial Correlation and Stepwise Multiple Regression Analysis. Findings. Korean-Americans' willingness to participate was significantly correlated to type of dwelling, home ownership, and household income, recycling by their friends and neighbors, the community's volunteer activities, and Korean television, radio, and newspapers. Conclusions and recommendations. The researcher found no differences in Korean-Americans' willingness to participate as compared to other groups' willingness as documented in the literature review. Some important recommendations that came out of the findings are: (A) Short-term goals: (1) media/public relations specialists of the city's recycling and waste reduction division have to advertise the city's recycling programs in general and minority-oriented programs in the Korean media; (2) recruit block leaders to contact households in neighborhoods; and (3) hire bilingual Koreans to the Los Angeles Conservation Corps (LACC) and/or public education team members. (B) Long Term Goals: (1) a program evaluation of minority-oriented recycling programs needs to be conducted; (2) additional research needs to be conducted with multi-dimensional perspectives because issues such as recycling cannot be summarized by uni-dimensional constructs; and finally (3) more research needs to be conducted investigating relationships between apartment residents' willingness to participate and the lack of recycling opportunities.