Exploring the social dimensions of multi-residential recycling

Ho, Ezra

doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2018.01.027

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…COVID-19 could further undermine convenience in multi-residential buildings since physical distancing in an elevator is difficult. It brings to the foreground what Ho (2018) refers to as the social dimension of convenience, where convenience of diversion is affected not only by proximity to the building's waste diversion site but also by uncomfortable social encounters experienced in getting there. Space constraints in units may make it difficult for households to store items, such as old office furniture, that they would like to take to second-hand stores.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of COVID-19 on household waste flows, diversion and reuse: The case of multi-residential buildings in Toronto, Canada

Ikiz

Maclaren

Alfred³

et al. 2021

Resources, Conservation and Recycling

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The COVID-19 pandemic has had numerous environmental consequences, including impacts on municipal waste management systems. Changes in consumption and waste disposal patterns and behaviours during the lockdown period have produced new challenges for solid waste management and waste diversion activities. This paper develops a conceptual model that reflects short-term changes in waste flows from households that are due to COVID-19 disruptions, focusing on the case of multi-residential buildings in Toronto, Canada. Multi-residential buildings are of interest because they differ from single family homes in several key ways that can produce some slightly different impacts of COVID-19 on waste flows and practices. Primary research for the study included interviews with 19 staff, residents and property managers of ten multi-residential buildings. All of the research took place while Toronto was still in partial-lockdown. Analysis of the interviews revealed five themes around the impact of COVID-19: (1) changes in garbage, recycling and organics flows, (2) new health and safety concerns, (3) changes in reuse and reduction practices, (4) changes in special waste and deposit-return bottle collections, and (5) changes in waste diversion and reduction education. Given the time frame of our study, we recognize these as short-term impacts and call for future research to determine how many of the changes are likely to perpetuate over the medium and longer term.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of COVID-19 on household waste flows, diversion and reuse: The case of multi-residential buildings in Toronto, Canada

Ikiz

Maclaren

Alfred³

et al. 2021

Resources, Conservation and Recycling

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“…The need for an interdisciplinary, integrated approach to recycling behavioural influences has been recognised by the field (Concari et al, 2020;Hicks, 2011;Ho, 2018;Phulwani et al, 2020). A number of 'meta-studies' (ie.…”

Section: Existing Reviewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interdisciplinary, systematic review found influences on household recycling behaviour are many and multifaceted, requiring a multi-level approach.

Macklin¹,

Curtis²,

Smith³

2022

Preprint

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Recycling is a common policy response to problems of waste, particularly in developed countries. Understanding what influences whether and how well people recycle is important for optimising recycling outcomes. Behaviour is complex, and understanding it fully requires drawing on insights from many disciplines. However past reviews of recycling behaviour research have revealed that the field is currently fragmented into single discipline endeavours, and highly concentrated around psychological approaches. The objective of this paper was to conduct a systematic review of current published knowledge from a wide range of disciplines on what influences households recycling behaviour. The resulting factors were systematically synthesised to produce a comprehensive multi-level hierarchy of potentially influencing factors. The process also revealed potential directions for future research to improve the field’s understanding of the influences on recycling behaviour, and the ability to develop more effective interventions that address waste and recycling issues.

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“…Thus, recycling's potential benefits are not being fully realised (Williams et al, 2020). Poor recent progress may be due to incorrect or incomplete understandings of what influences recycling behaviour (Ho, 2018;'Science That Can Change the World', 2019;Varotto & Spagnolli, 2017), which is essential to designing effective interventions (Moore & Boldero, 2017). Meta-studies that were conducted to synthesise literature on recycling influences have raised concerns about the quality of studies, which may underlie the incomplete understandings and lack of progress.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Systematic, quality appraisal of household recycling influences research finds evidence is mostly insufficient

Macklin,

Smith,

Curtis

2023

Preprint

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Research on recycling behaviour and its influences can play a key role in supporting public policy efforts to mitigate the negative effects of waste generation and landfilling. However, recent reviews have raised concerns about the quality of research on recycling behaviour. Despite this, no previous reviews have conducted quality appraisals to judge the extent and impact of quality issues. This is partly due to the difficulty of applying validated quality appraisal tools developed for intervention reviews in the health and medicine fields to behaviour influence reviews in environment and sustainability fields. This review aims to fill this gap by developing and piloting a bespoke quality appraisal framework, specifically tailored to the needs of interdisciplinary reviews of the influences on recycling and other pre-environmental behaviours. Application of the bespoke framework to a set of 81 systematically selected recycling papers highlights the substantial lack of causal evidence and the weak construct validity of measured ‘behaviour’. These quality issues undermine the ability of individual studies and the body of literature as a whole to draw strong conclusions about what factors have causal influence on real-world recycling behaviour in broad populations of interest. At the same time, this review identifies instances of better practice and key future directions to improve the quality of research and confidence in what influences household recycling behaviour.

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Exploring the social dimensions of multi-residential recycling

Cited by 6 publications

References 3 publications

Impact of COVID-19 on household waste flows, diversion and reuse: The case of multi-residential buildings in Toronto, Canada

Impact of COVID-19 on household waste flows, diversion and reuse: The case of multi-residential buildings in Toronto, Canada

Interdisciplinary, systematic review found influences on household recycling behaviour are many and multifaceted, requiring a multi-level approach.

Systematic, quality appraisal of household recycling influences research finds evidence is mostly insufficient

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