How can we change the public behaviours?
My name is Drew, a Waste Prevention Officer for the Council. This article is entirely my own opinion and perspective as a Waste Prevention Officer. Following a similar style to my previous article, I am now writing this one about another report I read. The report in question was conducted by Keep Britain Tidy and was named ‘Shifting the public’s focus from recycling to waste prevention.’ The report is highlighting the importance of moving the public up the waste hierarchy. The waste hierarchy is a model that shows the most environmentally favourable way to manage waste down to the least environmentally preferred. The model follows this structure: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, dispose of; a lot of misconceptions were underlined during the report, which ultimately told whoever reading that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of waste recycling and reduction.
The question from this report is how can we move people up the waste hierarchy? Often referred to as the three R’s (reduce, reuse, recycle) the most practiced waste prevention activity is recycling. However, recycling isn’t enough. We need to do more. My main concern when writing this article, is how can I make this an article that is going to change people’s behaviours?
To change the behaviour around recycling and waste prevention we need to reinforce that behaviour breeds behaviour, we often without realising copy the behaviours of those around us. The problem with this is, the minimal attitudes we give to waste prevention are going to be bred by those around us, specifically those younger. Why are we doing the minimum? The report had strongly emphasised that recycling has been prioritised over waste prevention, when conducting this research, it was found that recycling was the default activity to talk about when being asked about how they resolve issues regarding waste. We need to look at waste holistically, it isn’t just about the waste consumers throw away daily, it is also the waste generated during the production of the product.
A notable statistic from the report was that the average British consumer is exposed to more than 5,000 adverts daily, these adverts being those encouraging audiences to buy a product or service, the continuous flow of advertising and marketing being so convenient and influential is having a serious impact on the amount of waste produced daily. We are tricked into buying products that we don’t necessarily need, therefore we are justifying the purchase as a want. 31% of people surveyed said that they didn’t feel bad buying an item if the item itself or it's packaging was recyclable. Again, this is strongly reinforcing the misunderstanding of recycling, and that people see recycling as a reason to justify purchases and a way of not being wasteful.
Why is waste prevention crucial? 80% of those surveyed stated they believe products aren’t made to last, therefore this is reinforcing a linear economy of take-make-dispose. We need to move toward living in a more circular economy, in which we are circling products round by reusing and repairing them and effectively increasing the amount of life they have in them.
Amongst those surveyed there was an agreement that recycling is more impactful in reducing greenhouse gas emissions as opposed to preventing waste, 63% had disclosed they perceive recycling as having a large impact on decreasing greenhouse gas emissions compared to the 46% that said not buying ‘fast fashion’ will significantly contribute to a reduction of the emissions. This neatly corresponds to the article I published last month on the impact fast fashion has on the climate and waste prevention.
To move forward there are many things you can start to do that will make little to no difference in your everyday life but will help reduce waste. In your weekly supermarket shop, buy fruit and vegetables loose. The single-use packaging that comes around fruit and vegetables is extremely wasteful; did you know that if all apples and bananas were sold loose this would reduce 8,800 tonnes of plastic packaging per year. The pre-sorted packaging with set quantities of produce also promotes food waste as shoppers will buy more than they need within the pack.
Shopping in refill shops is also a significant way to reduce waste. You can bring your own containers to the shops and fill them up by weight. The popular supermarket ASDA has also introduced their own refill and reuse scheme where customers in certain stores can buy dry products and toiletries from well-known brands in a refill style, this scheme also came with a promise that the food they were selling unpackaged would always cost less than the food they sell that comes packaged. This incentive of lower price for non-packaged food and toiletry items is something we need to see more of throughout this country and it is something I want to see other big supermarkets do.
I am always reinforcing the ‘buy less’ attitude to my family and friends and constantly reminding them that buying duplicates at a reduced cost are only effective if you are completely certain you will use both. If you don’t, this is still a waste of money no matter how reduced the cost was and has produced waste in your household that could have been avoided. To move people up the waste hierarchy we need to begin with education, and we need to move away from being a heavily consuming and demanding society.
