Exploring the recycling dilemma: Consumer motivation and experiences in mandatory garbage recycling programs (original) (raw)
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Consumer motivation to recycle when recycling is mandatory: Two exploratory studies
2003
ABSTRACT Household recycling is conceptualized as a social dilemma in which households have a choice between cooperative and defective options. Promoting cooperative choice in the recycling dilemma has emerged as an important issue for social marketing in recent years. Most of the available insights that could guide policy makers in designing appropriate social marketing strategies are based on research conducted in the context of voluntary recycling programs.
Recycling as a marketing problem: A framework for strategy development
Psychology & Marketing, 1994
This article provides a framework for integrating past recycling research by conceptualizing recycling compliance as a marketing problem. Within a social marketing framework, recycling behavior is considered the product, and the marketing problem is to sell recycling to the consumers or public. Recycling research is then categorized as consumer research (research on characteristics of the recycler), pricing research (research on the costs to the consumer, including implicit or less tangible costs), distribution research (research on modes of participation for the recycler), and promotional research (research on intervention strategies such as raffles and contests, personal selling techniques such as block leader programs, and persuasive communications). Using this framework, we provide an integration of a vast amount of recycling research, and also suggest how this research can be used to design actionable strategies for the development of community recycling programs. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
The Role of Motivation in the Consumers’ Recycling Behaviour.
This paper presents the results of a survey conducted in Thessaloniki Greece, in a probability sample of 375 households, selected with a combination of the two-stage area sampling and the systematic sampling method. The main aim was to understand more deeply which factors motivate consumers to engage into Recycling Behavior. Besides Motivation, selected demographic characteristics, Knowledge about recycling issues, specific Recycling Attitudes were also examined with regard to the Recycling Behavior of the sample. The results, verifying previous research, indicated that consumers holding higher education and higher incomes get more involved in recycling activities than their counterparts do. Knowledge and Recycling Attitudes indicated positive, moderate, statistically significant relationships with Recycling Behavior. However, it was found that the most powerful factor to describe and predict Recycling Behavior is Motivation. Further analysis revealed additional indications that social incentives can be the type of Motivation that affects consumers more strongly.
Reducing Solid Waste: Linking Recycling to Environmentally Responsible Consumerism
Environment and Behavior, 1999
A survey of several communities was conducted to investigate the public's response to solid waste issues. This study examines the relation between respondents' beliefs about environmentally responsible consumerism and environmental attitudes, motives, and self-reported recycling behavior. The study addressed (a) the public's perception of environment-related product attributes; (b) a sociodemographic characterization of environmentally concerned consumers; and (c) the depiction of the relations between attitudes, motives, recycling behavior, and environmental consumerism. The results indicated that respondents were most concerned about product toxicity and least concerned about product packaging. The data showed that only age and gender were predictive of respondents' ratings. Several 107 AUTHORS' NOTE: The items analyzed in this research were included in a larger questionnaire developed to assess residents'opinions of solid-waste-related issues in Champaign County, Illinois. Funding for the survey was provided by the Illinois Office of Solid Waste Research, a state agency that funds solid-waste research with a percentage of the tipping fees from state landfills. Completion of this article was supported in part by Downloaded from For some time, recycling has been proposed as a major behavioral, lowtechnology solution to the nation's solid waste problems. Recently, however, limitations in this approach have emerged. Once recycling becomes popularized among the public and the behavior is widespread, the level of recyclable materials diverted from the waste stream reaches a plateau. This happens partly because some materials remain nonrecyclable until the appropriate technology to process these materials is developed. Another impediment to recycling as a primary solution to solid waste management is market saturation; as the supply of materials dramatically increases with the promotion of recycling, new buyers of the materials must be found as existing markets are exhausted. Moreover, as public opposition to solutions such as incineration and landfilling increases, attention to behavioral solutions, particularly those that involve the encouragement of source reduction, becomes important. In fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has named source reduction and recycling its top two priorities for waste management, and there is an increasing need to understand the relation between the two. This article discusses issues surrounding waste reduction through environmentally responsible consumer behavior. In this research, we define environmentally responsible consumer behavior as the purchase of products that benefit or cause less harm to the environment than do more conventional consumer goods.
Why recycle? A comparison of recycling motivations in four communities
Environmental Management, 1992
Four Iltinois communities with different sociodemographic compositions and at various stages of planning for solid waste management were surveyed to determine the influence of sociodemographic variables and planning stages on the factors that motivate recycling behavior. A factor analysis of importance ratings of reasons for recycling and for not recycling yielded five factors interpreted as altruism, personal inconvenience, social influences, economic incentives, and household storage. The four communities were shown to be significantly different in multivariate analyses of the five motivational factors. However, attempts to explain these community differences with regression analyses, which predicted the motivational factors with dummy codes for planning stages, a measure of self-reported recycling behavior, and sociodemographic measures were unsatisfactory. Contrary to expectation, the solid waste management planning stages of the cities (curbside pickup, recycling dropoff center, and planning in progress) contributed only very slightly to the prediction of motivational factors for recycling. Community differences were better explained by different underlying motivational structures among the four communities. Altruistic reasons for recycling (e.g., conserving resources) composed the only factor which was similar across the four communities. This factor was also perceived to be the most important reason for recycling by respondents from all four communities. The results of the study supported the notion that convenient, voluntary recycling programs that rely on environmental concern and conscience for motivation are useful approaches to reducing waste.
Challenges in Sustainability, 2021
Waste management and promotion of source separation by the public requires identification of the determinants of waste separation behavior, raising awareness, and reinforcing such behaviors. The present study aimed to determine the status of source separation behavior and identify the barriers, benefits, and factors affecting this behavior in Iran. This is a descriptive-analytic cross-sectional study conducted on 300 women selected through stratified sampling. The questionnaire applied included three sections. The validity and reliability of the self-made questionnaire were confirmed. In this study, descriptive statistics including the percentage, frequency, mean and standard deviation were used to describe the data, while chi-square and Fisher exact tests were applied to analyze the data. Logistic regression test was also used to determine the predictors of waste separation behavior. Only 17.7% of the respondents separated the wastes regularly. The age, level of education, benefits (OR = 6.746; 95% CI = 2.534-17.959), structural barriers (OR = 12.734; 95% CI = 3.516-46.119), motivation (OR = 9.613; 95% C I= 3.356-27.536), awareness (OR = 3.917; 95% CI = 3.351-11.356), and social norms (OR = 2.905; 95% CI = 1.030-8.191) were the determinants of source separation behavior. Considering the low participation rate in waste separation, efforts required to enhance such behavior need proper policy-making, training programs, and infrastructure to encourage the individuals to participate actively in waste separation. Educational interventions and campaigns are recommended to be designed to raise awareness and empower people.
Resources, conservation and recycling, 2002
Households' recycling effort is often argued to be of an insignificant size. It is also frequently argued that this contribution, if significant, is not a cost to households, since it is voluntary. Thus households' use of time and energy are frequently disregarded in cost-benefit analyses of stricter recycling targets. In this survey, based on 1162 interviews, we find that sorting at source involves significant extra use of time and energy in the households. On average, each of those asked reported that they use close to half an hour a week for cleaning, sorting and transporting recyclable waste. On average, 185 h is used per tonne of waste. Four out of ten reported that they use warm or hot water to clean the materials. When investigating the motives for sorting waste, we find that many perceive sorting as mandatory, while some in fact find it a pleasant activity in itself. Moral motives for sorting at source are also widespread. A majority would prefer that a company took over the sorting if this were possible, and on average, the respondents are willing to pay US$ 20/year for this service.
Increasing Community Recycling with Persuasive Communication and Public Commitment
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1986
Persuasive communication and public commitment were used to encourage recycling in a citywide program. The persuasive communication was a combination of factors which have been found by laboratory researchers to produce attitude and/ or behavior change. The public commitment manipulation involved signing a statement supportive of recycling. Households which did not recycle during a 6week baseline period were selected for experimental study. Trained Boy Scouts made an oral informational statement and then gave each of 201 experimental households one of three treatments (a written persuasive communication, public commitment, or both). A control group of 132 homes received no treatment. Recycling was observed for 6 weeks following delivery of all treatments. Results indicated that the three treatment groups recycled significantly more than the control group but did not differ significantly from each other. Future directions for applied work in this domain are discussed. Americans generate over 150 million tons of trash per year at an average annual cost of $4 billion. This is enough trash to fill the Superdome in New Orleans twice every day (Purcell, 1981). The lifetime garbage of a typical American will equal at least 600 times his or her adult weight (Hayes, 1978). Finding land for waste disposal sites near urban areas is becoming increasingly difficult. For example, if present trends continue, nearly all of Los Angeles County will be without refuse disposal capacity by 1991 (California Solid Waste Management Board, personal communication, 1981). Recycling, the reuse of wastes to produce useful commodities, could significantly contribute to the alleviation of the waste problem. The advantages of recycling are great. First, recycling diverts waste from landfills. This is epecially important as the areas for landfill purposes decrease, and of course there are clearly more desirable uses for land. Second, minerals and other raw materials are becoming scarcer and more expensive, and recycling extends resource supplies while typically rendering significant savings in both money and energy. For example, the recycling of aluminum saves over 95% of the energy needed to produce aluminum from bauxite ore and results in substantially less pollution of air and water (Hill, 1977). The research reported here focused specifically on persuasive communications and public commitment as factors encouraging citizen participation in recycling programs-programs designed to be beneficial to both the environment and the community. Research Background Past research by psychologists in the area of recycling has been mostly by behaviorists and thus has often emphasized the use of extrinsic incentives (usually in the form of money, toys, or raffles) to encourage participation (e.g., Geller, Chaffee, & Ingram, 1975; McDermott, 1980). This has led to the implication that incentives are necessary to stimulate and maintain recycling (Geller, Winett, & Everett,
Sustainability, 2018
Volunteering is a way to express civic behavior, including pro-environmental behavior such as buying products with recycled content. The purpose of this research is to understand the differences between individuals involved in volunteering activities and individuals who have never been involved in volunteering activities. In order to do this, dimensions are analyzed by categories of public: the general public, individuals involved in volunteering activities (volunteers), and individuals who have never been involved in volunteering activities (non-volunteers). Qualitative methods, based on in-depth interviews; and quantitative methods, based on Anova, Independent Samples T tests, factor analyses, and regression analyses have been combined. The sample included 469 respondents. The general dimensions of buying decisions are: product features, social values, promotions, low risk, uniqueness, and affordable price. The volunteers' dimensions of buying decisions are product features, social values, uniqueness, benefits, and promotions. The non-volunteers' dimensions of buying decisions are product features, uniqueness, credibility support, promotions, and low risk. In the conclusions section, implications are presented using specific communication for each of the three public categories, based on important resulting dimensions for each public.
Today's perfect - tomorrow's standard : the role of consumers and the limits of policy in recycling
2011
In this study the mechanisms influencing recycling rates around the system maximum are deliberated. On the one hand, Policies, System design and how Citizens understand the two aforementioned are pitted against each other. This is done in a setting where individual rewards from action are in turn set against the values of the community and the compliance measures/social marketing of recycling companies and policy makers. This is the dynamic setting of this dissertation. In the past much research into recycling has been focused on how to get recycling started. Sweden is in a bit of a different position with recycling levels often being very high in an international comparison. This means other challenges face citizens and policy makers alike. The determinants influencing recycling rates are studied and compared to contemporary research. Policy makers and social marketers that wish to see a system used to its fullest need to understand the determinants that remain to be influenced nea...