Reasons for non participation in a kerbside recycling scheme

The paper looks at the barriers to kerbside recycling and motivators to increase participation in 8,000 households in Sheffield.

Motivators

• Incentives and rewards until the habit becomes the norm otherwise they can go back to the same negative behaviour once the incentives have been stopped.
• Flexibility - allow people to share bins.
• Raising awareness to householders to increase participation through local groups.

Experiences: What does/doesn’t work?

• Barriers - one of the mostly common barriers to recycling is effort. This is also tied in with the person’s perception of how much effort is required to actually recycle.
• The logistics of where to place a bin was also a barrier as people did not have enough room, they did not generate enough paper to use the bin.
• Loyalty  - they already used charity bins
• Habit - they already used local bring banks.
• Lack of awareness - Being a new tenant was also a barrier.
• Appearance - some people did not like the colour of the bins and did not want them in their gardens/in front of their house.

Specific paper/book
Reasons for non participation in a kerbside recycling scheme. Caroline Oates and Seonaidh McDonald (published 2003)

Name
Caroline Oates and Seonaidh McDonald

Contact details
Sheffield University. Resources, conservation and Recycling 39 (2003) 369-385