Stimulating Correct Recycling Behaviour

Municipal authorities around the world devote significant money, time, experience and staff passion to improve waste and recycling outcomes in their communities. However, while these excellent efforts generally result in various positive measures such as recognition and recall of activities, positive perceptions of Municipal authority efforts and services and encouraging self-reporting of improvements in knowledge and behaviour, yet still most Municipal authorities are struggling with significantly higher than desired levels of waste generation and rates of contamination and leakage in kerbside recycling bins.

In this webinar, Ms. Jenni Downes, Senior Research Consultant at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney, will explore why it can be so hard to change people's waste and recycling behaviours, drawing on insights from the emerging fields of behavioural economics and psychology. She will then present emerging strategies and tactics that municipal authorities and others can implement to improve recycling behaviours.

Ms. Downes has 10 years’ experience in applied social research, with a focus on evaluation and research to develop effective strategies for household-level, organisational and society-wide change towards sustainable futures. Her passion is resource use and waste, and she lead’s the Institute’s work in project design and evaluation in this space.