Knowing What It Makes: How Product Transformation Salience Increases Recycling

Abstract

Recycling campaigns abound, but do consumers think about what becomes of those recyclables? This research proposes that product transformation salience (thinking about recyclables turning into new products) increases recycling. The authors theorize that consumers are inspired by the transformation of recyclables into new products and that this inspiration motivates them to recycle. The authors demonstrate the effect of product transformation messages on recycling behavior using a recycling campaign (Study 1) and advertisements for products made from recycled plastic (Study 2). Study 3 demonstrates the mediating role of inspiration. Then, three field studies provide robust support for the transformation salience effect through click-through rates for recycling advertisements (Study 4), recycling rates during pre–football game tailgating (Study 5), and a reduction in the amount of recyclable materials incorrectly placed in the landfill bin by students in a university residence hall (Study 6). The authors discuss implications for the design of recycling campaigns and positioning of recycled products in the marketplace as well as theoretical contributions regarding the roles of transformation salience and inspiration in encouraging recycling and other sustainable behaviors.

The Impact of Pro-environmental Preference on Consumers’ Perceived Well-being: The Mediating Role of Self-Determination Need Satisfaction

“…Specifically, PEP will increase well-being perception if consumers' competence need, relatedness need, or autonomy need is satisfied. Besides, prior literature indicates that consumers prefer to perform pro-environmental behaviors when they can gain positive emotions (e.g., well-being) from these behaviors [14]. Therefore, our findings not only can provide theoretical insights into the path from PEP to well-being but can also be of benefit to motivate the maintenance of PEBs over time.…”

“…In that study, social recycling was defined as "disposing of used goods by allowing other consumers to acquire them at no cost". Different from conventional consumption behavior, PEP may be more likely to increase consumers' perceived positive affect, like well-being [14]. Hence, we propose: Hypothesis 1 (H1).…”

A Cinderella Story: How Past Identity Salience Boosts Demand for Repurposed Products

“…However, we suggest that it does not, and that repurposed products escape the stigma of the past because they have effectively been transformed into a new product (see Winterich, Nenkov, and Gonzales 2019), who find that thoughts of transformation trigger recycling). Through this transformation, a salient past identity not only fails to harm demand but, on the contrary, fuels demand, and we propose that this is because past identity salience draws attention to the product's special story.…”

The Potential of Food Packaging Attributes to Influence Consumers’ Decisions to Sort Waste

“…In the absence of proper information, and the inability to communicate, the aim of the symbol was not understood. This is a disadvantage, since a previous study has shown that people are more likely to recycle if they are aware of the material's recyclability and the environmental benefits of recycling [94]. Also, some caps, even the larger ones, were not marked with a symbol.…”