Government Targets Versus Public Participation: Bridging the Gap

Traditionally, public engagement in household waste minimisation has been driven mainly by strong altruistic motivations, environmental concern, dislike of waste, reinforced through social norms and persuasive campaign messages, but constrained by insufficient enabling infrastructure. This paper examines the relative roles of infrastructure, persuasion, demographics, and habit on the behavioural responses of householders. It specifically considers the effects of alternative kerbside collection regimes on dry recyclate yields, and tracks two Derbyshire districts though an episode of change. Conversion from paper-only kerbside collections to multi-material collections in those districts produced significant step changes in paper yields as well as total yields. Reducing residual (dustbin) waste collection frequency at the same time produced the highest increases. The paper reviews key psychological models of recycling behaviour and behavioural change, and examines the psychological context of the Derbyshire results. Increased convenience and heightened saliency are considered to be the major triggers of behavioural change.

• Introduction

• Evaluating the Effects of Recycling Provision

• Performance Evaluations in Chesterfield and North-East Derbyshire: A Case Study

• Discussion and Conclusions

• Acknowledgements

• References