Advertising works, and if the recycling industry expects to receive quality materials through residential curbside collection programs, then a consistent message is crucial. Speakers at
WasteExpo 2016, held at the Las Vegas Convention Center June 6-9, in the “Recycling Super Session: Curbside Recycling & Public Education Programs,” discussed challenges and offered suggestions for running “recycling right” public educational programming initiatives.
Cody Marshall, technical assistance lead for
The Recycling Partnership, Falls Church, Virginia, said simply leaving the recycling cart at the curb is not enough. Maintaining constant communication with residents is vital.
“You can’t just leave a cart at the curb and walk away; you have to have constant communication with residents and continue to measure success,” Marshall said.
He added, “It’s not just a cart; it’s a program with people behind it.”
Marshall described how big brands such as Coca-Cola and Apple are so successful because their advertisements are exposed regularly. This should be true for recycling, Marshall said.
“Why are these huge programs so successful? They’re in front of us all of the time. That’s how recycling should be,” Marshall said.
Jason Hale, The Recycling Partnership’s communication director, suggested pairing awareness messaging along with behavior triggers (such as a refrigerator magnet detailing what is acceptable in curbside recycling bins) and feedback to residents (such as an “oops” tag on carts with unacceptable materials or acknowledging when a resident recycles well). Enforcement without education is frustrating and disenfranchising, he said.
“People are confused by this stuff,” Hale said. “Many feel like they are recycling right and they aren’t. It takes more than education to change behavior.”
Even the terminology is confusing, said Brenda Pulley, senior vice president, recycling, of
Keep America Beautiful, Stamford, Connecticut. She referenced a study where just 11 percent of Americans said they recognized the term “single stream.”
“If you really want people to buy into this don’t use a nebulous term as single stream,” Pulley said.
For the city of Columbia, South Carolina, it is thanks to consistent messaging and other efforts that helped to increase the total tonnage collected through its curbside residential program by 63 percent.
Speaker Samantha Yager, recycling coordinator for the city of Columbia, South Carolina, shared how a grant from The Recycling Partnership helped to increase the average tonnage collected from 320 tons per month to 500 tons per month.
Global packaging producer Amcor, headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and a member of The Recycling Partnership, invested $300,000 in the project in Columbia. This marked the first public grant awarded by The Recycling Partnership.
With the financing, Columbia converted from a bin-based to a cart-based recyclables collection program. As part of the program, 34,000 households received 96-gallon carts, technical assistance and recycling education/outreach.
Yager said eight months of planning went into rolling out recycling carts to residents. To prepare residents for their new carts, Yager said advertisements were placed in the local newspaper and at restaurants, as well as notices on social media and through mail-delivered postcards.
Residents received three pieces of information in their mailboxes:
- a letter about the new program;
- a refrigerator magnet detailing acceptable items in the recycling cart; and
- a notice of the cart’s first collection date.
“We wanted to let citizens know who to talk to,” Yager said. “Making sure everything is consistent, and trying to keep everything consistent [is important].”
She said Columbia residents “love” the new carts and she has even heard supportive comments including, “This cart makes me want to recycle.”
Marshall said The Recycling Partnership takes lessons it learns from working in cities like Columbia and shares it with the next communities it works with.
The Recycling Partnership also offers many free materials and resources on its website
http://tools.recyclingpartnership.org. Marshall said these resources are updated on a regular basis.
In addition to consistent messaging, successful residential curbside collection programs have strong contracts and strong relationships, Marshall said. “Relationships are crucial,” he said. “Curbside is such a dynamic process you want these relationships to be strong.”
He suggested three potential relationships to consider:
- cart vendor
- processing, i.e., the material recovery facility (MRF)
- collection
Marshall said, “The MRF you work with is so crucial. The importance of contracts … I could talk about this all day.”
WasteExpo 2016 was June 6-9, 2016, at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
