Convenience improves composting and recycling rates in high-density residential buildings

Abstract

Increasing volumes of solid waste, implicated in environmental pollution and health problems, are central to the current environmental crisis. In two randomized field experiments, we demonstrate that convenience dramatically boosts recycling and composting rates in multi-family dwellings and university residences. When compost bins were placed on each floor in a multi-family residence, instead of on the ground floor, composting rates increased by 70%, diverting 27 kilograms of compost from the landfill per unit per year. When recycling stations were placed just meters from suites in student residences, instead of in the basement, recycling increased by 147% (container), and 137% (paper), and composting increased by 139%, diverting 23, 22, and 14 kilograms of containers, paper, and compost, respectively, from the landfill per person per year. Simply making recycling and composting convenient can significantly increase waste diversion, and as such this single intervention has important implications for waste management and environmental policy.

Keywords:

• waste management
• recycling
• composting

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Susan Chun, Thea Zerbe, Melanie Yu, Anna Murynka, and Uttkarsh Bhardwaj for their dedication to weighing the compost and recycling bins. The authors would also like to thank Bentall Kennedy for their enthusiasm and for providing access to the residential buildings.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. 3.28 ft = 1 meter.

2. The same result is obtained if we omit the compost collected in the shared bin. That is, the most convenient condition produced more compost than the more convenient condition, even when the comparison was based only on the small hallway bins (p < 0.05).

Additional information

Funding

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Grant (to Alan Kingstone); National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) (to Alan Kingstone); Insight Grant (to Alan Kingstone); Discovery Grants (to Jiaying Zhao and Alan Kingstone); Canada Research Chair program (to Jiaying Zhao); NSERC post-graduate scholarship (to Alessandra DiGiacomo).