Perceptions of Waste
Earlier this month, our Trash Free Maryland Coalition dove into a knowledge-rich session with Dr. Michaela Barnett – sustainability expert, behavioral scientist, and entrepreneur. Dr. Barnett, who has a PhD in Behavioral Science for Sustainability, presented her research on Recycling Bias and Reduction Neglect (a study done in 2022 with 1,321 participants across two surveys).
The aim? To absorb the ramifications of public perceptions of waste reduction and recycling, crucial for shaping our decisions related to developing the most effective policy for Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging (EPR).
The revelations were eye-opening!
🔁 Source Reduction & Recycling
First what is source reduction and recycling?
Source Reduction is the elimination of waste before it is created to prevent natural resource depletion and other impacts to our climate and environment.
Recycling is the process of collecting and processing materials that would otherwise be thrown away as trash and turning them into new products.
In general most participants viewed recycling as the most effective solution to reducing waste over source reduction, however that perspective shifted when specifically discussing land and sea.
Land Vs. Sea
Perceptions about source reduction shift when the discussion changes specifically to land and sea.
In matters regarding reducing waste on land, individuals favored recycling with the most votes at 46% of the participants and only 6% favoring source reduction.
However when asked about reducing waste in the ocean, individuals said source reduction was the most effective at 40% and only 22% favoring recycling!
The US Environmental Protection Agency ranks source reduction at the top of the waste management hierarchy, followed by reuse, recycling and composting, energy recovery, and treatment and disposal.
So why did everyone seem to rank recycling so highly for reducing waste?
🔁 Focus & Impact
The reason may be the lack of faith in the impact that individuals can have at the design stage of the product life cycle.
Most believe the greatest impact they can have on solving the waste problem comes at the consumption of products and disposal stages.
72.9% see their impact in product consumption.
23.3% lean towards product disposal.
However when asked where they think efforts should focus in the product life cycle, 53.9% find the design stage most crucial, but only a mere 1.9% believe they can impact the problem at this stage.
Fig. 3 | Perceptions of what matters most for intervention and impact. Results of system-level questions on what stage to focus on to solve the problem of household waste. Participants were told, ‘Household waste can cause many environmental problems. There is a long process for products that eventually become waste, beginning with resource extraction and ending with disposal.’ See ‘Study 2 survey text’ in Supplementary Information for visuals that accompanied the questions.
🔁 Solution
The solution to a problem like this is to address the misconceptions of recycling, while also focusing on the source reduction at the design stage of the product life cycle.
What could this solution be?
We like to call it Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging or EPR.
EPR not only tackles the problem at the design stage of the product life cycle by making producers redesign their packaging to reduce waste, and increase recycling of packaging. It also strengthens the faith in the recycling systems by assessing the recycling market and finding market opportunities.
