What unsustainable behavior needs to change:

Despite the positive impact recycling may have on our environment and existing legislation to foster it, over the last decade, the volume of municipal waste has surprisingly increased, with low recycling rates and lower quality of waste (accuracy/cleanliness). Although this can partially be due to inefficient waste collection systems; more needs to be addressed in order to improve an individual’s recycling and sorting behaviour. Like other sectors, recycling rates in the UK-higher education sector, record a declining recycling rate. This data is concerning especially considering that universities continue to produce high levels of waste per year. 

Given the role that universities play to educate the youth and to complement current socio-eco efforts to increase awareness, thus the impact of different waste recycling interventions on a university site was explored.

The Green Nudge:

A vast body of literature on pro-social behaviour suggests that the presence of “eye images” positively influences human cooperation, primarily driven by concerns about reputation rather than mere attention to written or verbal instructions. While informational campaigns have generally been effective in promoting recycling participation, individuals often rely on quick, intuitive decisions and are prone to errors.

In order to better understand the direct connection between subtle observability cues and the activation of motivation to adhere to social norms, researchers conducted a field experiment. They analysed recycling behaviour under two conditions: one utilising “eye images” alone and the other combining eye images with existing written instructions. Data from these treatments were compared with a control group that received no intervention.

The result: The findings indicate that the combination of eye images with written instructions reduced recycling errors, consequently decreasing waste sent to incinerators or landfills. Conversely, the presence of eye images alone had a detrimental effect on recycling rates, leading to increased errors. These results suggest that rather than relying solely on reputational effects, the presence of eye images enhances individuals‘ attention, thereby motivating them to correctly dispose of waste.

What unsustainable behavior needs to change:

Despite improved waste management infrastructure, waste is still poorly separated due to a lack of motivation and knowledge among students and staff. Common waste items such as disposable coffee cups, pizza boxes, and packets of crisps often land in the wrong bin, contaminating the bin entirely and thus sending it straight to the landfill. 

There are various barriers to waste sorting and recycling amongst university students: the physical environment around them, which includes waste infrastructure and signage; and the psychological factors, such as limited waste sorting knowledge, low environmental concerns, lack of trust in the recycling system and low perceived collective effort. To tackle these barriers and complement the current efforts to raise awareness, a cost-effective and systematic education method was needed.

The Green Nudge:

Developed as part of the Campus Living Labs Sustainability Project “The Waste Game” game was designed by The Behaviouralist in collaboration with four Irish universities, and relevant stakeholders, including MyWaste.ie, An Taisce Green Campus and Regional Waste Authorities.

The Waste Game aims to transmit waste prevention and recycling knowledge. The game is designed as a quiz and structured around the waste hierarchy framework, focusing on waste prevention followed by recycling. It includes behavioural and gamification techniques to support learning and engagement. At the end of each level, players can choose to commit to a set of actions in real life before moving down the waste hierarchy and unlocking the following level. Players can earn points throughout the game and can compete against each other with a chance to win a reward based on their performance. The game was designed in collaboration with participating universities and tailored to their local context.

Are you aware of any other nudges that use gamification to promote environmentally-friendly behaviour? Feel free to comment or get in touch: hello@green-nudges.com

What unsustainable behavior needs to change:

One of the biggest problems in recycling is the contamination of recyclables. To encourage more recycling, a common solution is to increase the numberof recycling bins. Unfortunately, this inadvertently means that people would discard non-recyclables into these conveniently placed bins, resulting in the contamination of recyclables. 

People often develop routines and habits when it comes to waste disposal, and these habits may not align with proper recycling practices. For example, if someone is accustomed to throwing all their waste into a single bin at home without considering recyclability, they may continue doing so even when recycling bins are available in another setting. 

Breaking ingrained habits and establishing new ones that prioritise proper recycling behaviours can be a key factor in reducing contamination and promoting effective recycling practices.

The Green Nudge:

Tommy Cheong, a Singaporean industrial designer who graduated from the National University of Singapore (NUS), came up with an idea to improve the design of recycling bins by “adding friction.”

 His design has three key features that tap into the principles of behavioural science.

1. A display of contaminants: Catering to people who don’t know what cannot be recycled, the bins include a real-life display of some common contaminants; thus making it easier for users to identify what they shouldn’t put into the bins.
2. A defensive lid: If shaping the opening of the bins to accept only very specific items wasn’t enough, the bins also have a defensive lid to prevent people from “conveniently” discarding non-recyclables into them. This disrupts people’s “System 1” automatic habit of throwing anything and everything into the bins, and activates “System 2” by forcing them to consider what exactly they should be putting into these bins. This functions like a baby’s toy where you can only fit the correct shape into the puzzle!
3. A transparent bin housing: Just in case people still don’t know what should be placed into these bins, the bin housing is designed to be transparent, so that users can see what others are putting in the bins; therein harnessing the power of social norms!
   

The result: The trial of this bin design at shopping malls yielded a remarkable outcome, with contamination rates for plastic bottles reducing from 79% to an impressive 29%.

As you can see, green nudges can sometimes make use of more ‘friction’, especially if we are trying to discourage incorrect behaviour. And when it comes to recycling, having fewer but cleaner recyclables may actually be better than having lots of contaminated items.

Are you aware of any other nudges that help to keep recycling streams clean? Feel free to get in touch: hello@green-nudges.com

What unsustainable behavior needs to change:

Aotearoa New Zealand sadly isn’t amongst the world champions of recycling. Compared to other countries, recycling rates are much lower. According to Recycling New Zealand, in Auckland alone, the amount of waste sent to landfills is expected to double in the next 10 years!

More numbers? 

• NZ generates 17 million tons of waste each year, while 76% of it goes into landfills 
• 40% of household waste that could be recycled, goes into the wrong bin
• Each year, approximately 2 billion plastic containers aren’t getting recycled

Following the lockdown of the COVID19 pandemic, recycling rates worsened. In Christchurch particularly, rates plummeted, with material from only 48% of garbage collection trucks being recycled in June 2020. The reason: too much contamination resulting from poor sorting by residents. Even the local EcoSort facility had to close temporarily due to  many residents failing to, for example, remove bottle lids or exclude thin plastic films, such as cheese wrappers. 

The question was: How to motivate people to better sort their garbage and keep recycling streams clean? Punishment or reward? Sticks or carrots?

The Green Nudge:

The Christchurch city council introduced a public reward (and shaming) system that builds on the idea of social norms. Anyone who does an excellent job at sorting the right, properly cleaned rubbish items gets a large gold star added to their kerbside recycling bin, visible for the whole neighbourhood to see. The star uses a neat pun, saying: “Thanks for bin great”. 

The result: In 2020, more than 177,000 bins have been checked, with nearly 50,000 gold stars issued (~31%). They not only rewarded successful recyclers – compliance staff also gave out education notices (to ~61%) and removed the bins of those who repeatedly failed to recycle properly (only ~260 in total). The council considers the Green Nudge initiative as a great success: In only a few months, the number of successful recycling trucks headed to the sorters increased from 48% to 80%.

So, what are the underlying reasons that the nudge worked? We’ve seen other social imitation nudges like in the energy supplier or shopping trolley examples. But the gold star stickers are more visible on a public level and have a stronger shaming element.

MIT research scientist Erez Yoeli, who studies how altruism works, would probably explain this as ‘our collective desire to be seen as generous and kind instead of being selfish’. But Kenrick and Griskevicius might argue that “going green to be seen” might indeed be status-driven social signalling and thus be anything but altruistic.

Full article in The Guardian.