Four universities handed grant for waste study

Four universities in England have won a £200,000 grant towards a joint independent study into how household dynamics affect families' waste management practices and why some people respond to publicity campaigns better than others.

The universities – Portsmouth, Kingston, Northampton and Exeter – were awarded the money by the Leverhulme Trust, which awards around £50 million each year to research projects under a competitive tender process.

Researchers will use the grant to fund a study, called ‘The social context of household waste management', which will, in part, assess what demographic is the keenest recycler within households and families, as well as how individual behaviours affects decisions relating to recycling and waste management.

The project will draw 4,000 random addresses from the Electoral Register and deliver a questionnaire to the households on the topic of how they deal with waste. This will act as stage one of the project.

In stage two, the researchers will also attempt to unearth the subject's ‘life histories' – in order to understand why certain people respond to waste the way that they do. This will take the form of some interviews and put the information into a historical context. The first results of the study are expected in spring 2011.

Commenting on the project, Dr Mark Riley of the University of Portsmouth's geography department, said: “This is one of the first times that anyone has looked at what happens on the other side of the house door, at who is leading on recycling and what drives people to produce less waste.

“Most research until now has looked at what whole households do about their waste. This research will allow us to find out what drives some people to go to great lengths to recycle and reuse while others don't despite millions being spent on recycling campaigns.”

Dr Riley stated that the project will assess what routines people have around waste and attempt to “tap into” when they recycle and what it is that influences them. He said: “Are they inspired more by life changes, such as the birth of a baby, or by their own history, and have they always acted in a certain way?”

Research

Furthermore, he said that the scheme will look at recycling at “an individual level” and will be the first of its kind to encompass the entire life cycle of waste management – from purchasing products with less packaging to reusing items to kerbside recycling and composting.

“People are very distant from their waste now,” said Dr Riley. “Not many of us know where our rubbish goes. There is a lack of connectedness.”

The researchers are hopeful that the findings of the study will be viewed by policy makers in order to help them target waste management policies towards different ‘lifestyle groups'.