Provision of feedback to promote householders’ use of a kerbside recycling scheme: a social dilemma perspective

As English local authorities develop strategies to deal with the growing volumes of municipal waste created in their districts, householder participation in recycling initiatives is becoming increasingly important. Taking a social dilemma perspective, this paper adopts an individual (psychological) strategy as a means of enhancing kerbside recycling use in the London Borough of Havering. Three groups of householders received motivational messages on recycling performance with a different bias: critical, neutral or encouraging, whilst a further group acted as a control. Although differences in recycling behaviour prior to and following intervention were not statistically significant for any treatment group, average use of the scheme was found to decrease post-leaflet in all cases, but less so for those in the 'encouraging' message group. Responses to a questionnaire survey indicated that householder attitudes did not vary significantly between treatment groups. The study shows that an individual (psychological) approach alone is not sufficient to enhance householder recycling behaviour in Havering over the short term. Future promotional strategies are suggested that combine both the individual and the collective approach to motivate and encourage recycling participation.