By my count, there are no fewer than 130 published academic papers that have studied some aspect of how to influence recycling behavior. This is a lot of effort to understand what seems like a simple, routine action: what causes a person to drop an empty bottle or sheet of paper through the opening of one bin versus another? We’ve learned a number of things over time. Recycling behavior is driven by layers of factors, including the situation a person experiences as they discard an…

What have we learned? How do we apply it?   This blog is part of a series of conversations between Busch System’s Senior Advisor, Alec Cooley and Brenda Pulley exploring the science of recycling behavior in relation to bin and signage design.   Read PART ONE of the series. Read PART TWO of the series.   Brenda:  We’re back for the third and final installment of this set of blogs exploring the effectiveness of using words vs. images on bin signage. These in turn are part of a…

  Cognitive Science of How We Process Images & Words   This blog is part of a series of conversations between Busch System’s Senior Advisor, Alec Cooley and Brenda Pulley exploring the science of recycling behavior in relation to bin and signage design. If you missed it, you can find PART ONE of the series here, or you can continue on to PART THREE of the series here.   Note to reader: the first reference to a given academic study in this blog identifies them by their…

This blog is part of a series of conversations between Busch System’s Senior Advisor, Alec Cooley and Brenda Pulley exploring the science of recycling behavior in relation to bin and signage design. This is the first part of a three-part series – you can find PART TWO of the series here, and PART THREE of the series here.   Alec: Welcome to the second post in our ongoing blog series exploring the intersection of recycling behavior and bin and signage design.  Our goal with these is to…

One of the biggest impediments to an effective recycling program is the trash can. Everywhere we go, it is far too easy to simply throw everything into a readily accessible and all-too-easy-to-use trash bin. Only by making it easy to recycle will we ever see an increase in our recycling rates. Want to increase the number of recyclables collected in your area? Make sure you have recycling bins competing with your garbage cans. Only by placing recycling containers right next to the garbage can we…