Visual Prompts or Volunteer Models: An Experiment in Recycling

Abstract

Successful long-term programs for urban residential food waste sorting are very rare, despite the established urgent need for them in cities for waste reduction, pollution reduction and circular resource economy reasons. This study meets recent calls to bridge policy makers and academics, and calls for more thorough analysis of operational work in terms of behavioral determinants, to move the fields on. It takes a key operational element of a recently reported successful food waste sorting program-manning of the new bins by volunteers-and considers the behavioral determinants involved in order to design a more scalable and cheaper alternative-the use of brightly colored covers with flower designs on three sides of the bin. The two interventions were tested in a medium-scale, real-life experimental set-up that showed that they had statistically similar results: high effective capture rates of 32%-34%, with low contamination rates. The success, low cost and simple implementation of the latter suggests it should be considered for large-scale use. Candidate behavioral determinants are prompts, emotion and knowledge for the yellow bin intervention, and for the volunteer intervention they are additionally social influence, modeling, role clarification, and moderators of messenger type and interpersonal or tailored messaging.

Getting Wasted at WOMADelaide: The Effect of Signage on Waste Disposal

“…All signs developed for the purpose of this project were designed to complement Adelaide Green Clean's colored bin covers, which are red for GWB, yellow for BCCB and green for COB. These bin covers are bright, noticeable and have a pleasant design, in line with recommendations by Lin et al (2016) [13]. The bins were located side by side, which has been shown in a number of studies to achieve greater positive results than those separated by distance [52].…”

“…There are a number of studies which show modeling the correct behavior is advantageous in encouraging a higher number of correct deposits [13,34,49,67]. This is supported by a study conducted by Sussman and Gifford (2013), where signs were erected above COB in a shopping center food court and an independent fast food restaurant.…”

“…Sussman and Gifford (2013) aimed to align two norms by using signs to deliver an injunctive norm message, and models to help create a descriptive norm impression, that composting is already being practiced by others [35,68]. Other studies have tested the effect of signage compared with the use of volunteer advisors and found the results to be statistically similar [13]. WOMADelaide employ the use of volunteers called the "Green Team" to politely demonstrate (model) and explain (verbally) how the waste should be sorted [13].…”

“…It is argued that visual prompts which are pleasant or funny are successful as they create a positive emotional state in the readers mind [13,35,39,40]. In addition, adding a picture may make signage more effective [41].…”

“…There were many variations of the pictures used to highlight the most common acceptable materials to be deposited into each bin [13] and it was important not to include any branded products. The cups sold at the festival were chosen as the largest Compostable and Organic (C & O) item pictured, as it was anticipated there would be a high volume deposited and they had a plastic appearance, despite being made from corn starch.…”