2005 Recycling Pilot Program Report

Home

Scenario E: Increased education Education Collection Schedule Bi-Weekly Recycling Containers One 18-gallon bin Number of HousehoRds 34�4 Participation Rate 86_3% Avg. Lbs Collected per HH per Routel 25.3 Most lmportant Component2 �nvironmentaf Benefit 1.9 Resident Satisfaction NA Willing to Pay More NA Derived irom Appendix H Table 3 net average pounds per household calculations ZOn a scale of 1- 4 wifh 1 being the mosi important out rate at 72.2%. Residents in this area were mailed the new educational materials in Appendix A. This scenario tested the effect the educational material alone would have on resident behavior. ParCicipanis remained on the every other week collection cycle. When asked in the pre-survey what would motivate them to recycle more residents in this area overwhe�ningly picked a �nancial rebate. More than 42% of these residents picked the rebate whi�e 25% picked #he second most popula.r option of weekly collection. Residents in this area were fifth in participahon rate in the "before" period at 79.5%. They had the second highest increase in participants at 6.8%. But they remained in fi$h at 86.3%. Residents in this area also were fifth in set out rate in the "befare" period at 67.7%. They increased 4.5% in the "during" period but remained the second lowest set Participants increased the amount of recycling put out for collectian per person. The xnean pounds per household collected went from 21.73 in the "before" period to 25.30 in the "during" period. The education pieces were well regarded. There were two strong themes that came through in the post- survey: residents found the magnets handy and easy to use, and residents leamed the message of only recycling plastic bottles with a neck. That appears to be borne out in the composition sort. The "other trash" categary that included unvvanted types of plastic dropped from� 2.1 % of the sample in the before period to 1.3% in both of the "during" period sorts. Overall the "other trash" in all ihe two-stream sampl�s stayed roughly the same in all three sorls. �ne respondent noted that helshe put out less recycling after exclucling the unwanted types of plastic. This area did have a block that was not single-family homes. There were 21 rental townhomes in a corner of the tes� area. Rental properties tend to have Iower participation rates in part because of the transient nature of these residents (for more on th�is see the section Observations on Lower Participating Areas). These residents were almost equally divided into the diiigent recycler, infrequent recycler and non-recycler categories. Resident behavior did not change after the educational material was mailed to them. 32