Mission: Recycle

For our group project, we wanted to encourage staff and students at the University of Warwick to recycle more. In order to do this, we researched behaviour change techniques and used them to produce an infographic that we placed near bins around the university library. The main aim of the infographic is to make recycling into a competition by comparing Warwick University's recycling habits with a neighboring university which recycles more than Warwick.

The infographic

We also placed pictures of eyes on bins around the library, next to the infographic, as shown in the picture below. The eyes are a priming technique used to subconsciously influence behaviour, as demonstrated in a study by King, Vlaev, Everett-Thomas, Fitzpatrick, Darzi & Birnbach (2016).

The eyes are watching you!

Behaviour change in action!

The University of Warwick collects data on the amount of waste that gets recycled at the uni and releases this data annually. Data published next year would show whether our posters (plus other efforts taken by the university) have achieved the goal of increasing the amount of waste that is recycled.

~ Charlotte Woltynski, Ludovica Fallanca, Shayna Mandalia & Ella McCann

References

King, D., Vlaev, I., Everett-Thomas, R., Fitzpatrick, M., Darzi, A., & Birnbach, D. J., (2016). "Priming" hand hygiene compliance in clinical environments. Health Psychology, 35(1), 96-101.