Encouraging Recycling Through Neighbourly Competition Suggested in Report
Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - 13:34:58
A study published by Swedish researchers reveals that it may make sense for councils to instigate a more transparent approach to collecting waste from residents in an effort to cajole people into recycling more of their household output.
Letsrecycle.com reports that the research found that people who are aware of the average weight of the waste that the people who live in their community produce will subsequently change their own habits and end up sending more materials to be recycled rather than shipping them off to landfill.
Crucially, it was important to reveal the comparative weights of general waste so that households were aware of their relative position within the neighbourhood. This led to a 10 per cent typical downturn in waste generated, with a responding increase in recycling.
A similar approach is already taken when it comes to energy use, with many providers showing how customers compare with other people in the local area when providing billing information.
Although the data is provided anonymously, it is clear that simply knowing roughly how much other households are throwing out each week gives people a competitive compulsion to try and outdo them.
Furthermore, the researchers focused on showing around half of the 20,000 participating households in the study the information relating to their most efficient neighbours when it comes to waste disposal. This meant that people were exposed to higher than average recycling rates, and thus an even greater improvement was possible.
The main area in which the report’s authors argued that improvements could be made to the study itself was in the electronic distribution of the waste collection data, since in the first iteration of the experiment it was sent out on paper sheets, which in itself created a small waste issue.
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