Teaching recycling through gamification: The Waste Game
An interactive online tool designed to encourage waste prevention and recycling on Irish university campuses
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.
The result: The Waste Game was successful in increasing knowledge, motivation to sort waste and confidence in waste-sorting amongst participants. It has now been developed into an independent platform and will be part of the onboarding week for new students at universities in Ireland.
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
The Waste Game was developed by behavioural scientists and designers at The Behaviouralist, as part of the Campus Living Labs Project. Campus Living Labs is a partnership project between the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Irish Universities Association (IUA) aimed at encouraging pro-environmental behaviours among students in Ireland.
