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Psychology
What I have learned
Case Study
how a cognitive bias was leveraged for behavior change
Michelle Metzler | The Recycling Partnership, Feet on the Street Program
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Challenge
Putting garbage (non-recyclable items) into the recycling bin makes it more difficult and costly to put materials back into manufacturing.
20-60% reduction in recycling contamination
since implementing a "cart rejection" initiative, a systematic approach of using curbside feedback to improve recycling quality.
Solution
Implementing a "cart rejection" initiative in a systematic approach by using informative and material incentives to improve recycling quality.
Results
Providing consistent curbside feedback decreased recycling contamination by 20%-60%.
How it worked
The Feet on the Street Program worked to reduce recycling contamination by:
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providing community members with informational mailing packets that highlighted recyclable vs non-recyclable items.
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delivering 4 rounds of feedback cart tagging (see image below for example of "cart tags").
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​refusing to service bins that contained recycling contamination.
Community members that received both a feedback tag (brightly colored, OOPS!, listing what is and isn’t allowed in the bin, etc.) and a refusal of service drastically reduced contamination rates in their recycling bins.
how Psychology contributed to this study
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The cognitive factors that were leveraged to change behavior and decrease recycling contamination were Cognitive Dissonance (identity misalignment over receiving feedback tag) and Loss Aversion (aversion from dealing with an overflow of recycling and losing of social standing).
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Levers of behavior change such as Material Incentives, Information, and Social Influence positively influenced behavior and allowed this project to be decently successful.
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Psychologically, the inconvenience of having too much leftover recycling was also incentive enough to improve behaviors for the future.
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