1	An Integrated Approach to Improving Recycling at Washington and Jefferson College Christopher Micheal Nafe 2004
2	What Should I Do? Research that could make a change, and be used once I had left Look at the campus and attempt to identify the problem Create a plan to Solve the problem
3	Recycling? In many places with large groups of people living in a small area, there is a great deal of waste generated. Most individuals are too busy to be concerned with where their waste is taken once disposed of Community programs dealing with issues such as recycling typically involve some degree of confusion debate and skepticism
4	Recycling at Washington and Jefferson? Location of bins Labeling Coloring of Bags Questions about disposal Why should we care if nothing is being done?
5	Starting Somewhere Changing behavior requires changing culture The idea is to make it easier to recycle Cooperation of the Environmental Studies Program and Psychology Department Cooperation and Assistance of Physical Plant and SAFE Labeling bins Placing bins in functional locations
6	Introduction My goal with this study was to attempt to improve recycling at Washington and Jefferson College by implementing a persuasive intervention and measuring the effect.
7	Elaboration Likelihood Model The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion says that people are persuaded via one of two routes. In the central route the person thinks about the message rationally and decides whether or not it has merit. In the peripheral route the person uses simple decision rules to quickly accept or reject a message without really thinking about the message itself (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986 ).
8	Hypotheses My first hypothesis was that by implementing an intervention designed to appeal to both central and peripheral processors enough individuals would be persuaded to produce a significant improvement in recycling behavior. My second hypothesis was that all female floors would show better recycling behavior than all male floors.
9	Methods
10	"Procedure:" Procedure: A Naturalistic Observation of recycling behavior was carried out in public spaces and in dorms. Public Spaces Recycling behavior was observed in two designated “high-traffic” areas of campus during busy periods of the day. Behavior was recorded as either being proper recycling behavior or improper recycling behavior.
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13	Proper Recycling Behavior: Placing recyclable material in the bins designated for that material i.e.-placing aluminum cans in bins labeled metal Placing material which is not recyclable in trash cans
14	Improper Recycling Behavior: Placing recyclable material in trash cans Placing trash in recycling bins Placing recyclable material in the incorrect bin i.e.- placing plastic bottles in bins labeled metal
15	Private Spaces - Dorms The recycling bins were observed on Sunday nights at 7 pm on 3 different types of floors – coed, all male and all female. On each floor the following information was recorded: how full the bins were the percentage of the contents that were correct recyclable material the percentage of the contents that were incorrect recyclable material the percentage of the material that was trash
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19	"Intervention Schedule:" Intervention Schedule: Weeks 1 & 2: Baseline Data Collection Week 3: Clear labels were placed at eye level over each of the bins in both the public areas and the dormitories, and the bins were moved into functional locations. Week 4: An informational article was published in the school newspaper about recycling on campus. A contest was initiated in the dorms offering four dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts to the dorm showing the most improvement each week.
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22	Recycling for Doughnuts For the next three weeks, there will be an assessment of recycling in this dorm as well as a few others. the dorm which improves the most at the end of each week will receive 4 dozen krispy kreme doughnuts. They will be given out Friday at 7 either in the building lobby or one in the study rooms of each floor depending upon the winner.
23	"Participants:" Participants: Participants were individuals who passed through the public space being observed during the hours of observation and residences of the dorm floors being observed at Washington and Jefferson College. All participants were treated in accordance with the “Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct” (American Psychological Association, 2004).
24	Results
25	"Private Spaces" Private Spaces Week A Two-Way ANOVA was used to test the effects of gender composition of the floor and week of the intervention on recycling behavior. There were main effects for week on measures of how full the bins were, percent of correct material in the bins, and the percentage of bin contents that were trash (See Figure 1).
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27	"Floor Gender" Floor Gender There were also significant main effects for the gender composition of the floors for how full the bins were, percent of correct material in the bins, percent of incorrect recyclable material in the bins, and percent of trash in the recycling bins (See Figure 2).
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29	"Public Spaces" Public Spaces A One-Way ANOVA was used to compare recycling behavior in the public Spaces for different weeks found no significant results.
30	Discussion
31	"Public Spaces" Public Spaces The recycling intervention did not significantly improve recycling behavior in the public regions. However, there is a trend of correct recycling behavior increasing, and incorrect recycling behavior decreasing across weeks 2-4 (See Figure 3).
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33	"Private Spaces" Private Spaces Data from the dorms supported the hypothesis that the intervention would improve recycling behavior. The amount of correct material placed in recycling bins increased, and the amount of trash placed in the bins decreased during the intervention period.
34	Floor Gender The gender of the dorm floors also had an effect on recycling behavior across the 4 week timeframe: All female floors showed the highest amount of correct recyclable material followed by the coed floors with the all male floors trailing a distant third. The bins on all male floors contained a significantly higher amount of trash than female or coed floors. The Coed floors placed the lowest amount of trash in the bins overall.
35	Diversify The results suggest that the residents of all female floors are more likely to, or are more conscious of recycling than males.
36	Limitations Parameters set by the college physical plant and maintenance staff limited the areas in which I could relocate bins, designate bin type, and place signs at eye level Spring sports and an improvement in the weather resulted in more students remaining outside reducing traffic in the public spaces and shifted the time of highest traffic. Because this is a small campus, some of the individuals being observed may have been aware of the observer and what he was observing and altered their behavior because of this knowledge.
37	Conclusion There is hope for improving the recycling behavior and habits of the general population of Washington and Jefferson College if the right changes are made:
38	"The recycling bins need to..." The recycling bins need to be clearly labeled and placed in areas where they can be easily accessed. There should be a centralized location for recycling in each public space and on the floors of each dorm with a separate bin for each type of recyclable material (glass, paper, metal, and plastic).
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40	"There need to be an..." There need to be an adequate number of trash receptacles on each floor in the dorms. The recycling bins are used as trash cans much more frequently when the trash cans on the same floor are full. The creation of more coed floors and less all male floors would likely also have a positive effect on recycling behavior.
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42	"The support of maintenance staff..." The support of maintenance staff in buildings clearly makes a difference in the ability of residents to recycle. Dorms with staff committed to recycling are more likely to have an adequate number of containers and trash receptacles, and those dorms have showed significantly higher levels of correct recycling behavior from the beginning of the study.
43	References American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Shadel, W. G., Niaura, R., & Abrams D. B. (2001). How Do Adolescents Process Smoking and Antismoking Advertisements? A Social Cognitive Analysis With Implications for Understanding Smoking Initiation. Review of General Psychology, 5(4), 429-444. White, P. H., & Harkins, S. G. (1994). Race of Source Effects in the Elaboration Likelihood Model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(5), 790-807.