PROJECT SUMMARY

The placing of non-recyclable items ('contaminants') into household recycling bins is a persistent problem, facing local, state and federal government waste policy makers, the waste industry and the community as a whole.

This project focuses on gaining a better understanding of why contamination happens in the first place and what behaviour change interventions can successfully help Australians improve their recycling practices.

KEY ACTIVITIES

To understand both barriers to correct recycling and potential interventions, we:

1. Conducted interviews with policy stakeholders.

2. Conducted a rapid evidence and practice review, investigating academic literature and practitioner experiences.

3. Ran two co-design workshops with over 70 stakeholders to brainstorm, prioritise and select interventions to test.

4. Designed a series of 3 field trials and 3 online experiments to be implemented by 23 local and state government partners.

OVERVIEW

We conducted a rapid evidence review to summarise and evaluate published literature and practitioner reflections on the effectiveness of interventions for reducing contamination and encouraging correct recycling at a household level.

Alongside, we conducted a series of interviews with Australian policy-makers and reviewed their policy documents to better understand identified barriers and potential interventions in the Australian context.

In reviewing the literature, we found little high-quality evidence on 'what works' to change contamination behaviour. The review therefore focused on broader recycling and waste-related behaviour.

Note: BehaviourWorks Australia was engaged by the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment to conduct this review, in parallel to the other work of the BWA Waste and Circular Economy Collaboration.

KEY FINDINGS

The research revealed:

• it is not easy for people to identify the 'right thing' to do, while contextual factors can also constrain cooperation

• current recycling schemes are not necessarily designed to optimise correct recycling

• interventions aiming to improve convenience and ease of preferred recycling behaviours are the most widely effective

• effective communications need to be tailored to the specific characteristics of schemes, populations and preferred behaviours, and utilise social modelling/norms and persuasive messaging alongside information.

OVERVIEW

Following the CoDesign workshops and followup work, a series of online experiments and field trials were selected.

In all, 13 field trials and 24 online experiments were designed in collaboration with 19 local Councils, Planet Ark and our four state government Collaboration Agencies.

Facebook experiments:
What works to grab and hold people's attention?

• Click-throughs to learn about soft plastic / bagged recycling contamination

• Click-throughs to learn about general recycling rules

Survey experiments:
What works to improve people's sorting knowledge / intentions?

• Improving design of printed materials such as flyers

• Providing additional kerbside recycling streams/bins

Field Trials:
What works to improve people's actual sorting behaviour?

• Providing reusable recycling bags to improve in-home sorting systems in apartment buildings / towers.

• Improving binbay materials and setup to change the physical context in apartment buildings / towers.

• Providing personalised feedback to improve knowledge and prompt habit change in individual houses.

KEY FINDINGS

Trials were significantly delayed due to Covid-19.

Final results are expected mid 2021.