A research project in Sweden has suggested that householders who know the weight of their neighbours’ domestic waste generate less themselves.
And, the professor behind the findings has said this could work as a new tool for councils to incentivise recycling.
Around 20,000 households participated in research conducted by the University of Gothenburg, the Ratio Research Institute in Stockholm and the local governments of Partille, a suburb of Gothenburg.
Around 20,000 households participated in research conducted by the University of Gothenburg (Picture: Shutterstock)
The study saw 13,000 households receive information about the waste of both their own and their neighbours waste, while the other 7,000 did not.
On average the informed households reduced their domestic waste by between 8 and 10%, when compared to the uninformed households.
This was due primarily to increased recycling and is equal to a 150kg reduction in CO2 emissions per capita per year, the research showed.
Professor Magnus Söderberg, the researcher at the Ratio Research Institute, who led the project, said: “Several studies have previously sent out information about households’ electricity and water consumption, together with a social norm, but this is the first implementation and rigorous scientific evaluation within the waste sector.
“The percentage reduction is double that seen in electricity and water projects. This implies that local policymakers now have a new tool to use when they want to incentivise households to reduce their domestic waste.”
The core information sent to each household was a bar chart showing the weight of their own waste, the average weight of their 100 closest neighbours’ waste and the weight of the waste of so-called ‘efficient’ neighbours, defined as the average weight of the 20% of households with the lowest waste weights.
“Local policymakers now have a new tool to use when they want to incentivise households to reduce their domestic waste”
Professor Söderberg describes the step between this research and potential policy as ‘small’.
He has, however, identified one area in which the study can be improved: the information available to each household was distributed on paper and Professor Söderberg fears this could have been provocative or even counterproductive as part of a project where the aim was to reduce waste.
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Source: letsrecycle.com Waste Managment
