Understanding attitudes toward pesticide use: Residential lawns compared to community open space

Understanding attitudes toward pesticide use is a critical component of municipal pesticide use policy formation. Guided by common property resource theory and traditional attitude-behaviour theory, this study investigates environmental belief as an indicator of attitudes toward pesticide use and differences between attitudes toward pesticide use on residential lawns and community open space. A mail questionnaire was sent to an exploratory sample of 300 residents in Halton Hills, Ontario. Correlation and association analysis and multi-dimensional scaling were used to analyse the results. It was revealed that environmental beliefs are a weak to moderate indicator of pesticide use attitudes, and a difference exists between attitudes toward pesticide use on residential lawns and community open space. The information generated by this thesis is valuable for landscape architects and other decision-makers involved in municipal government. It will contribute to a growing resource of information about public beliefs and attitudes toward important environmental issues.