Education key to improving recycling, finds survey

The research, which was carried out yesterday (June 15) at the Futuresource event in London's Docklands, asked delegates to gauge what they believed would be the best way to encourage residents to increase their recycling.

In a breakdown of results, 56% of those polled claimed that better education would be the key element compared to 31% saying there was a need for incentives and 11% suggesting that fines would be the best way forward for councils.

The results of the survey come one week after the coalition government announced that it would be focusing on rewarding residents in order to increase recycling (see letsrecycle.com story).

It also comes despite a government pledge to slash spending on advertising – which some fear could hit promotional and educational work relating to recycling.

Spokesperson for SITA UK, Anthony Durston, said: “The delegates who completed our questionnaire clearly consider that education is the key driver to encourage people to recycle more.

“They also consider that the 'carrot, rather than the stick' approach works best when it comes to increasing recycling levels; when asked if fining people – or being fined themselves – would help to increase recycling levels, just 10% of people agreed.

Survey

In its second question of the survey, SITA asked delegates to consider what would encourage them to recycle more material. As opposed to the findings of the question on wider policy, the resounding answer from respondents was that they would recycle more if they were given incentives to do so.

In contrast to the first question, the results saw 35% say that they would recycle more if they had an incentive to do so, 29% said they would if they were better educated, 15% said they recycle enough already, 11% chose the option of ‘other' and 10% said if they were fined for not recycling.

Mr Durston said: “Over 35% of respondents said that having incentives would encourage them to recycle more. This was followed closely by 29% saying that they would like access to better education.

“Considering the questionnaire was completed by people who are connected to the recycling and waste management industry, this would suggest that issues are complex and more education across the board is needed.”

In total 46 delegates responded to the survey and SITA UK is today (June 16) running another two question survey looking at what barriers currently prevent the development of new waste management infrastructure.