Project to-date…
In 2012, Professor Susan Michie (UCL
Centre for Behaviour Change) and
Richard Jackson (UCL Sustainability)
received a UCL Grand Challenges
small grant to evaluate a wastemanagement intervention to
promote recycling on UCL campus.
Phase 1 examined the effectiveness
of a recycling intervention in Drayton
House. Weight of recycling and
waste were collected and compared
two weeks before and two months
after implementation. The same data
were collected in a matched control
site,
Chandler
House.
The
intervention was not more effective
than the existing system in the
control site at prompting building
users to put only waste in waste bins.
The UCL Research Team
L-R: Richard Jackson, Susan Michie, Lou
Atkins, Heather Gainforth, Kate Sheals,
Caroline Wood
Students: Korin Mitrova + Anu Gulati
Evaluating a waste management
intervention to promote recycling
behaviour change
Summary: Waste is a major environmental issue. Recycling goods is one way of
reducing waste sent to landfill. Designing effective interventions to promote
behaviours related to recycling is key. This project aims to (i) identify or establish
measures of amount of recycling placed in recycling bins, contamination of recycling
(i.e. the amount of non-recyclable waste placed in recycling bins), and lostopportunity for recycling (i.e. the amount of recycling placed in bins for nonrecyclable materials) (ii) evaluate the impact of an intervention to increase recycling
in one university campus building from 50% to 90% recyclable waste, and (iii)
identify reasons for sub-optimal recycling and (iv) informed by this evaluation, codesign an optimized intervention.
Phase 2 used a theory-based semistructured interview schedule to
identify reasons for sub-optimal
recycling. Building users were generally
motivated to recycle but did not have
opportunities to recycle (e.g. access to
bins) or were unsure of the procedures
involved (e.g. did not understand bin
signage).
Phase 3 saw UCL staff and students take part in a ‘think-aloud’ study for which they
were asked to throw away items (commonly considered difficult to dispose of)
using current bin signage. Key barriers to users understanding the signage and
responding appropriately, were identified e.g. signs provide insufficient
instructions on how to dispose of mixed materials and items contaminated with
food or liquid; signs displayed a lot of information, much of which could not easily
be read when in a hurry. Data informed refinement of signage and a second thinkaloud study assessed user understanding and response.
“I am not very sure how far the ‘contamination thing’
goes – a plastic cup comes into contact with coffee, but
it’s empty’ – Student
“I’ve used these bins a lot but I’ve never read more than
the top line or two” – Student
“If I’m a bit undecided I’ll put it in non-recycling because
you don’t want to reduce the quality of the recycled
goods” – Staff member
Next steps…



Continue work with Bywaters, the UCL Sustainability and UCL Estates
teams to optimise recycling solutions for UCL staff and students
Carry out a natural experiment within UCL campus buildings to test the
effectiveness of revised bin signage
Explore ways in which we can increase awareness of the recycling
processes used by Bywaters and how recycling can benefit the wider UCL
community