Elsevier

Journal of Environmental Management

Volume 91, Issue 2, November–December 2009, Pages 403-410
Journal of Environmental Management

Mobilizing citizen effort to enhance environmental outcomes: A randomized controlled trial of a door-to-door recycling campaign

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2009.09.010Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper uses a randomized controlled trial to test whether doorstep canvassing can raise participation in kerbside recycling. Existing research shows that canvassing can confront negative attitudes, increase understanding and resolve structural obstacles, but there is less known about the longitudinal effects of such interventions, which may fall away over time. 194 streets in Trafford, in the North West of England, UK were randomly assigned into a treatment and a control group. All households in the treatment group were visited by canvassers who were trained to promote and encourage recycling. Recycling participation rates for all households were measured by observing bin set out rates over a three-week period. Measurement was done before and after the canvassing campaign and then again three months later to see if the intervention had been effective in raising participation rates. Random-effects multilevel regression models, controlling for baseline recycling, street size, deprivation and size of ethnic minority population, show that the canvassing raised recycling participation rates for the treatment group compared to the control group, but there was a decline in the impact of the intervention over time. The intervention was more effective on streets with low levels of recycling at baseline.

Introduction

It is widely acknowledged that the actions of citizens are essential to implement policies for a better environment, largely through modifying their individual behaviours (Jackson, 2005). Creating environmentally positive outcomes is a massive task for the twenty-first century as societies across the planet face the challenge of dealing with climate change and disposing of the products of an increasingly consumerist society. It is possible that much of the change will happen through growing awareness of the problems, in reaction to market incentives, or in response to information and regulation from government and other actors. But it is also likely that interventions will be needed, which involve some direct contact with the citizens. While some of these could be the result of demonstration projects or the recruiting of community champions, it is likely that face-to-face contact between an advocate and the citizens has a good chance of achieving a desirable outcome. The state or the voluntary sector may recruit a body of activists to mobilize the citizens to behave differently, much in a similar way that canvassing can get people to vote, for example (Green and Gerber, 2008). The voting literatures and existing studies suggest an effect based on the communication of information in a face-to-face context, a degree of persuasion and taking an interest in the person. With some activities, such as change in car use, it is hard to imagine such a change taking place without a considerable effort in persuasion. But many other activities require modest lifestyle adjustments, with reminders and cues being effective at bringing about behaviour change. Here kerbside recycling is such an activity, where households leave out recyclable waste for collection by the local authority.

This paper provides an experimental test of an intervention designed to increase recycling. A number of studies have been conducted to test the effectiveness of different interventions to raise participation in kerbside recycling schemes, comparing areas or households with or without the intervention (examples include Bryce et al., 1997, Timlett and Williams, 2008, Woodward et al., 2005). Schultz (1998) conducted a randomized controlled trial examining the impact on recycling behaviour of providing written feedback on individual and neighbourhood recycling behaviour. Lyas et al. (2004) undertook a randomized controlled trial to examine the impact of different types of motivational leaflets. This paper presents a randomized controlled trial to test the impact of a door-to-door canvassing campaign. Streets in the research area were randomly assigned into a treatment and control group. All households in the treatment group were visited by canvassers who promoted recycling, while households in the control streets received no special attention. Recycling participation rates for all households were measured by observing which households put out a recycling container for collection over a three-week period. Measurement was done before the canvassing campaign and then repeated immediately after the canvassing and again three months later. This is the first randomized controlled trial to measure the impact of a door-to-door canvassing campaign on recycling participation, examining the effects three months after the intervention in order to understand the longer term impact of such an intervention rather than a short-term fillip.

The paper first reviews the literature on interventions designed to improve kerbside recycling, the contribution of street effects, the role of habit, the importance of baseline rates and the impact of socio-demographic variables on recycling behaviour. Following the CONSORT guidelines for reporting randomized controlled trials (Moher et al., 2001), it then sets out the research design and methods, describes the analytical approach, reports the results of the experiment, and then concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings for recycling and mobilization campaigns and policy.

Section snippets

Interventions to raise participation

There are a number of potential approaches to encouraging recycling. They range in type, appealing to different kinds of motivation. Promotional and educational campaigns can raise participation rates by ensuring people understand the scheme and motivating people to get involved. High visibility events and road-shows can be successful in building awareness (Read, 1999). Incentives can work in areas with low recycling participation rates (Harder et al., 2006), but they may crowd out intrinsic

Research objectives

The rationale for the study is that a field-force can appeal to people's environmental motivations reminding them of their underlying willingness to contribute. While previous experiments have examined the impact of written feedback (Lyas et al., 2004, Schultz, 1998) or leaflets and pledges (Bryce et al., 1997), this is the only field experiment to measure the impact of canvassing on kerbside recycling and it is the first to consider the longitudinal effect of an intervention to raise

Descriptive statistics

The descriptive statistics in Table 2 suggest that the mean participation rate in the canvassed streets rose from 47.7 per cent before the campaign to 52.0 per cent immediately afterwards and then rose again to 52.6 percent three months later. Among the control group streets the mean participation rate fell from 54.0 per cent to 52.9 per cent but then rose to 57.2 per cent. When comparing first follow-up to baseline, recycling participation in the canvassed group rose by 4.3 per cent whilst the

Conclusion

The research did not start out with the expectation that canvassing would lead to radical changes in behaviour because the intervention is modest. There was also the risk that an intervention might be short-term. And so it proved to be. Immediately after the canvassing, recycling in the intervention group rose by 5.4 percentage points when compared to the control group, and the effect was significant, but the effect lessened over time to just under 1.7 per cent. There is a decline in

Acknowledgements

The research study is part of the Rediscovering the Civic and Achieving Better Outcomes in Public Policy project (see www.civicbehaviour.org.uk), funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, Department of Communities and Local Government and the North West Improvement and Efficiency Partnership, grant reference: RES-177-025-0002. The authors wish to thank everyone at EMERGE, our partners in this project. We thank Martin Bland, Neil Carter, Don Green, Ian Plewis, Peter Shaw, David

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