How to Make People
Recycle More
Stergios-Greece
Many everyday products are recyclable, but
very little waste actually gets recycled. Only
13% of municipal solid waste is recycled
globally. Part of the problem is that people put
things in the trash that could go in the recycling
bin. And recently, recycling rates have been
stagnant.
One key to breaking out of this rut and getting
people to recycle more may be encouraging
them to imagine a new life for their trash,
researchers from Penn State University and Boston
College report in the July issue of the
Journal of Marketing.The researchers conducted
six different experiments to demonstrate that
messages emphasizing new goods that can be
produced from recycled materials make people
more likely to recycle.
In one experiment, college students in a
behavioral sciences laboratory watched an
advertisement promoting recycling. Students
who saw an ad emphasizing that recycled
material is transformed into new products were
more likely to recycle papers they‟d been given
at the beginning of the session than those who
watched a more general pro-recycling message.
It doesn‟t seem to matter what the recycled
materials turn into, the researchers found:
participants who watched an ad about products
being turned into the same thing (a plastic bottle
becomes a new plastic bottle) were just as likely
to recycle as those who watched an ad about
products being transformed into different things
(a plastic bottle becomes a fleece jacket).
Next, in an online study, participants viewed
one of three recycling advertisements and then
were asked about their level of motivation to
recycle. The findings suggest that the product
transformation messages work because they
make people feel inspired, the researchers say.
“It is not the outcome itself that is inspiring but,
rather, the transformation process,” they write.
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