Psychological Studies on Recycling

Promoting Campus Recycling: Effects of Education, Signage, Feedback and Sorting Technique

Jason Schroeder, Jeremy Skrenes & Keith Suchodolski
Psychology

Poster Presented at the Celebration of Undergraduate Research Conference

Valparaiso University
April, 1999

Introduction

One purpose of this study was to compare recyclers and non-recyclers on recycling knowledge, environmental concern, and willingness to recycle, as well as to assess the interrelationships among these variables. A second purpose was to measure the effectiveness of a new campus recycling program, new signage, and an educational campaign. This was accomplished by taking daily recycling measurements in two residence halls and comparing these measures to baseline data.

Large-scale behavior change is encouraged if new behaviors are easy to learn and remember. Research indicates that signs should suggest easy, convenient behaviors, and communicate exactly what should and should not be done. Also, signs should be located in the line of sight where the desired behavior is to occur. Finally, the sign must be comprehensible within the time a person allocates for completing the task. New signs were designed based on this research (see Figure 1).

Thus, a new "three-sort" system and signs were designed to help people learn and remember three things: 1) all paper in one bin, 2) all containers in another bin, 3) all trash in a third bin. The new signs were posted to reinforce the new system and discourage unwanted behaviors. Since research also suggests that providing people feedback about their recycling behavior promotes recycling, feedback posters were prominently displayed in Wehrenberg and Lankenau Halls (see Figure 3). Finally, a new sorting technique was also introduced in Lankenau.

A recycling survey was distributed prior to implementation of the new program. Weight measurements of recyclables were taken prior to and after the intervention to assess the program’s effectiveness.

Surveys were administered to undergraduate students. The survey contained six sections, which yielded the following sub-scales: procedural knowledge (e.g., bin locations), content knowledge (e.g., which materials are recyclable) environmental concern, importance of reasons for recycling, importance of reasons for not recycling, and current/future commitment to recycling. Responses were measured on a 5-point scale (1: Strongly Disagree; 5: Strongly Agree). Based upon their responses to the item, "I regularly use the recycling bins," participants were divided into "recyclers" (response > 3) and "non-recyclers" (response < 3).

The new program used the three bin system. Two dormitories, Lankenau and Wehrenberg, were selected for comparison. Weight of recyclables was measured daily. Both dorms received the three bin system, new signage, and feedback posters (see Figures 1 and 3). An educational campaign was also implemented via newspaper articles, radio announcements, campus mail, posters, and e-mail prompts. Lankenau residents received yellow bags, two each week for sorting paper and containers, along with instructions for proper sorting technique.

Separate t-tests yielded significant differences between recyclers and non-recyclers for several sub-scales of the survey (see Table 1). Recyclers had significantly higher procedural knowledge and environmental concern than did non-recyclers. Recyclers also indicated higher future commitment to recycling and more willingness to serve as a "recycling coordinator" in their dormitories than did non-recyclers.

The subscale totals for reasons to recycle indicated that while recyclers and non-recyclers did not differ in their ratings of the importance of reasons for recycling, non-recyclers placed greater emphasis on reasons for not recycling than did the recyclers. Analyses of individual items measuring reasons for recycling indicated that recyclers placed greater emphasis on "energy conservation" and "conserving landfill space" than did non-recyclers. Regarding reasons not to recycle, non-recyclers rated the items, "too few recyclables," "no time to prepare materials" and "limited storage space" as more important than did recyclers.

Pearson correlations (see Table 2) indicated that current recycling was positively related to environmental concern, procedural knowledge, content knowledge, and future recycling. Procedural knowledge was positively related to environmental concern, content knowledge and future recycling. Importance of reasons for recycling was positively related to environmental concern. Importance of reasons for not recycling was negatively related to current and future recycling, as well as to procedural and content knowledge. Current recycling was positively related to commitment to future recycling.

Figure 1 illustrates the weight measurements from an eleven-day period after the program was introduced. Similar figures also served as the feedback posters in the two residence halls. These data will be used to assess the program’s effectiveness by comparing overall weights prior to and after intervention. These data will also be used to assess the effectiveness of the yellow bag sorting system in Lankenau by comparing weights between Lankenau and Wehrenberg Halls.

It is perhaps not surprising that recyclers scored higher than non-recyclers on environmental concern, procedural and content knowledge, and commitment to future recycling. However, an intriguing implication of these differences is that one way to increase recycling behaviors could be to direct efforts at increasing non-recyclers’ environmental concern and specific knowledge about how and what to recycle. Thus, educational campaigns should be both motivational and informational.

It is also interesting that while recyclers and non-recyclers seemed to agree on the importance of reasons for recycling, non-recyclers placed greater emphasis on reasons for not recycling than did recyclers. This implies that efforts to increase recycling should focus on overcoming perceived barriers to recycling, rather than reiterating reasons to recycle.

These conclusions are also supported by the correlations, which indicated that procedural knowledge emerged as a central correlate of not only specific content knowledge, but also of environmental concern and current/future commitment to recycling. Importance of reasons not to recycle also emerged as an important correlate, in that it was negatively related to both the knowledge and behavioral variables.

The weight measurement is still in progress. However, inspection of the pre- and post-intervention trends suggest that the new program is, indeed, increasing campus recycling.

Table 1

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Variable Group Means t-value

Recyclers Non-Recyclers

Procedural Knowledge 24.50 20.63 4.17***

Content Knowledge 10.22 8.63 1.91

Environmental Concern 45.02 41.09 2.34*

Future Commitment 19.24 14.45 4.02***

Willingness to be recycling coordinator 4.06 2.24 3.79***

Importance of reasons for not recycling 13.54 16.69 2.50*

Importance of reasons for recycling 25.37 23.95 ns

Note. * p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001 ^ns(not significant)

Table 2

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PK CK EC RF RN CR FC

Proc. Know. (PK) --

Cont. Know. (CK) .17* --

Env. Concern (EC) .33** .17* --

Reas. FOR Recy. (RF) -- -- .23** --

Reas. NOT Recy. (RN) -.37** -- -- .15* --

Current Recy. (CR) .52** .17* .33** -- -.30** --

Future Commit. (FC) .45** -- .29** .21** -.39** .52** --

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Note. *p < .05 **p < .01 (Two-tailed, df = 177).

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