Recycling in Denver Survey: A Quantitative Research of Public Awareness, Attitude, and Practices of Recycling - Coursework Example

Recycling in Denver Survey A Quantitative Research of Public Awareness, Opinion, Attitude and Practices of Recycling Mona Haji, of Denver,April 2009 Abstract This research into the recycling attitudes, awareness and practices amongst the citizens of Denver seeks to shed insight for the benefit of improving the promotion of recycling programs in the city. The expectation or hypothesis is that people are positive towards recycling, are aware of how they can recycle and why they should do so and practice recycling in this day and age. To find out a survey of 100 randomly selected participants was conducted and the participants were asked a set of questions on recycling: the importance they attached to it, the frequency with which they did it, their attitude towards it, their awareness of recyclable items, recycling schemes and so on. The results generally show a greater knowledge, awareness and receptivity to recycling amongst younger age groups. Amongst the other significant findings is that people although positive about recycling need more encourage to put their feelings into practice in Denver. Improvements can be made in the area of increasing awareness and making recycling more convenient in Denver. Introduction Denver like many other cities in the US has a special recycling program. This survey examines how well aware the public is of this recycling program, the scope and provisions for recycling, knowledge of which items can be recycled, and what could be done to encourage the practice more. According to the Recycling in Denver Colorado newsletter, March 2009, Volume 1, Issue 1 (Mona, 2009), we know that recycling helps ease the demand for scarce natural resources and has saved Denver from a potential landfill crisis. Recycling programs are actually cheaper to operate than waste collection, prevents materials with economic value from going to waste, and consequently people can save money on their household trash bills. But how many people really know about all this? Also, in its endeavor to promote recycling, Denver has many schemes in operation. For example, Denver runs an e-cycle coupon program in partnership with Best Buy and Guaranteed Recycling Xperts and to arrange for the pick up of larger recyclable items there is an online form available on their website. Since September 2006, Denver has streamlined recycling into a ‘single-stream’ process. A special plant facility mechanically processes all recyclable materials. This makes it “easier for customers to recycle” (Wieting, 2006) because they don’t “have to sort and divide their reyclables… The system allows for more items to be recycled at one time than have been allowed before… [Instead, all can] be put into one large container that is place at the curb for collection which is then sent to the recycling plant” (ibid). In fact, Denver Colorado is recognized as a leader in offering the single-stream recycling process. And, it has one of the largest paper recycling and processing plant in the country too. Again, it is all very well that these provisions are in place, but how many people are aware of these and make the effort to recycle. For those that don’t always recycle, what can be done to encourage and make it more convenient for them to do so? This survey gives researched information to help policy makers address these questions. Method This survey was conducted by means of administering a short questionnaire (see appendix) consisting of 10 simple questions. On a Saturday afternoon early this month in downtown Denver, along with the help of two colleagues, 100 members of the public, citizens of Denver, were asked these questions, which took no more than 10 minutes of their time per individual. These 100 were chosen entirely at random and it took us 6 hours to reach our quota. Actually, a cross-section of people was requested to participate in the survey who happened to be passing by, but only those who could spare the time and did so, their views are represented. With the exception of the final question, which is an open-ended type question prompting an opinion on Denver’s efforts at recycling, answering all questions involved checking one or more from a possible number of options. The validity of the questionnaire had been tested prior to using it. The first two questions were for classification purposes viz. to ascertain the gender and age group of the participant. Questions 3 attempts to gather the importance attached to recycling and question 4 to know the frequency of recycling done by the individual concerned. The next two questions seek to elaborate on the attitude towards recycling and what could be done to encourage the individual to recycle more (if not being done to the maximum extent already). Questions 7, 8 and 9 were designed for us to gain specific details on the level of awareness of the general public as to what can or cannot be recycled, how well Denver citizens know about the various recycling schemes on offer and knowledge of the justifications for recycling. Results Of the 100 members of public residing in Denver who were questioned, 37 were male and 63 were female, and over half of the participants were from the 16-25 and 26-35 age groups. The precise breakdown of participants by gender and age is given in the table below. Proportion of survey participants By Gender By Age Male 37 Under 16 13 Female 63 16-25 32 26-35 23 36-45 21 46+ 11 Table 1 Graphs 1 and 2 Considering the importance attached to recycling, and the frequency of recycling, the quantities are skewed towards the upper end in respect of the former and towards the lower end in respect of the latter. The figures for both importance and frequency categorized by age group are shown together in the table below for easier comparison (see especially the last column), and illustrated in separate bar graphs below further. The reason for the breakdown by age is because this shows interesting differences. Importance attached to recycling and the frequency of recycling Age group Not at all / Never A little / Rarely Somewhat / Sometimes Very / Often Extremely / Always Under 16 (13) 0 / 0 0 / 0 0 / 6 1 / 4 12 / 3 16-25 (32) 0 / 0 1 / 0 2 / 4 3 / 18 26 / 10 26-35 (23) 0 / 0 0 / 1 2 / 3 3 / 12 18 / 7 36-45 (21) 0 / 1 0 / 3 3 / 9 8 / 4 10 / 4 46+ (11) 0 / 3 1 / 5 1 / 1 5 / 1 4 / 1 Table 2 Graph 3 Graph 4 On attitudes towards recycling, the general impression is one of optimism. Not one person checked the last option for question 5 i.e. “I rarely or don’t recycle because I don’t think it’s a good thing.” Therefore, it is a positive sign that everyone agrees recycling is a good thing. Also, most people were assertive because only a few said they recycled only when told to do so in the under-16 age group. For the remaining 3 options, there was a fairly even distribution although a gender difference was noticeable with respect to making determined efforts to recycle. Females appear to be more forthright in recycling than males. For question 6 the three top actions were fairly equally regarded as making the person more likely to recycle and there were no significant gender or age differences. Three independent respondents gave a similar suggestion for an alternative action that would make them more likely to recycle. They all desired for someone to come and collect the recyclables at their place so presumably they would not need to make much effort themselves. As was fairly predictable from the above results, awareness of recycling was much greater amongst the younger age groups than the older ones i.e. younger people are generally better informed of what can or cannot be recycled, and the justifications for recycling. There were no significant gender differences. With reference to the list of items in question 7, although only a few (19%) correctly assessed all the items for ‘recyclability’, the majority made only 1 (32%) or 2 (36%) misidentifications. Of these, the majority were in the first 3 age groups. The top four items people thought could be recycled but cannot are plastic bags (42%), clamshells (16%), gift wraps (13%) and magnets in phone books (8%). The top four items people thought cannot be recycled but can be are caps and lids (47%), greasy pizza boxes (31%), detergent bottles (28%) and boxes with shiny paper on the outside (15%). Top 4 misperceptions of what can or cannot be recycled CAN be recycled but people thought they cannot Caps and lids (47%) Greasy pizza boxes (31%) Detergent bottles (28%) Boxes with shiny paper on the outside (15%) CANNOT be recycled but people thought they can Plastic bags (42%) Clamshells (16%) Gift wraps (13%) Magnets in phone books (8%) Table 3 Awareness of the various recycling schemes in Denver is dismally low. Not many people seem to know much of what is going on in the place they live in. Very few know about the regular trash separation at Denver’s waste management processing plant (23%), and fewer still of the e-cycle program (14%) and the fact that recyclable of large or bulky items can be arranged for pick up using an online form (12%). The low knowledge of Denver’s new single-stream recycling process (only 31%) was surprising despite these large single containers being quite visibly placed around Denver. There were not much gender differences but the figures do show relatively greater awareness amongst the 26-35 age group. Graph 5 On the justifications for recycling, the results showed roughly similar findings to the importance people attached to recycling. That is, younger people are generally better aware of the rationale for recycling than older people. The results for all the awareness questions are illustrated in the charts below. Graph 6 The purpose of the last question was to get people’s overall impression of Denver’s recycling efforts as well as specific details of either what made them satisfied or what more could be done to make them satisfied. An overwhelming 81% were satisfied with Denver’s efforts and 19% said they were not. The majority of those who were satisfied stated the recycling bins they could see around Denver (94%) and a few mentioned other reasons (6%) such as the pickup service and the ‘high standard waste management processing plant’. Most of those who were not satisfied failed to give an explanation (75%). Those few that did mentioned there should be more recycling bins (18%) amongst other reasons. Graph 7 Analysis The views and habits of females are represented more than those of males. There were about 70% more females as compared to the number of males. According to age, 55% were between 16 and 35. The older 46+ age group is least represented but this is roughly equal to the under-16 age group. Thus the survey findings are probably more typical of a female in her twenties although there is no suggestion of either a deliberate or accidental bias in this regard as this was a randomly conducted survey. The importance and frequency data show an interesting discrepancy between thought and practice, and significant age differences. Many people acknowledged the importance of recycling but not as many actually did recycle. This begs to ask why people feel they are unable to put their thoughts into practice or what prevents them from recycling, which they do admit they perhaps ought to be doing more of. Also, it can be clearly seen (in graph 1) that younger people attach greater importance to recycling than older people. This suggests the effectiveness of recycling messages in our schooling of children. Actual recycling done is greater amongst the 16-25 age group and secondly the 26-35 age group. The first and last groups recycle less. Young children it seems know well about recycling but need to be better guided by their parents on how to go about it and the oldest group is perhaps unaccustomed to the habit of recycling. The general attitude towards recycling as mentioned above is overall positive, especially amongst females. The convenience factor stood out most so this suggests although people are general favorable towards recycling the extent to which they would do so depends on how convenient it is to recycle. As for the few individuals who wish for extreme convenience by wanting others to come and collect their recyclables, they are exhibiting nothing but laziness. The first part of the awareness section (question 7) shows two interesting observations: Firstly, younger people are better informed about recyclable items and people generally are more unaware of things that can be recycled than those which cannot. However, the misperception that plastic bags can be recycled is quite high at 42%. Equally, the misperception that bottle and jar caps and lids cannot be recycled is even higher at 47%. Apart also from greasy pizza boxes and detergent bottles, other misperceptions are few and below 16%. Awareness of Denver’s recycling schemes although very low happened to be greater amongst the 26-35 age group. Perhaps most breadwinner parents of Denver’s households fall into this category and therefore are relatively more acquainted with these schemes because they are most likely to be responsible for disposing of large recyclable items and looking around for coupon programs for their shopping, The suggestion that younger people are more aware of the justification for recycling is again attributable to our education programs. However, the suggestion that the under-16 age group has the greatest awareness of all the items in no.9 is disputable on grounds that they cannot be so acquainted with economic values of recyclables, operational costs of recycling programs, savings on trash bills, jobs in the recycling industry etc. It is possible that their highly positive attitude towards recycling prompted them to check all the justifications. Discussion It is clear that most people do favor recycling and have a good attitude towards it but there despite all the efforts at promoting recycling there is still a lack of sufficient motivation and this problem needs to be tackled. In this fast paced world people desire convenience so efforts must be directed at making recycling more convenient for people. This implications of the results for no’s 7, 8 and 9 are significant for recycling awareness programs and general education about recycling in schools. People ought to better informed as to what can or cannot be recycled, about the recycling schemes in their city and why we need to recycle. People are on the whole happy with Denver’s recycling efforts but their individual participation in the recycling process must be encouraged and strengthened. The study supported the initial expectations except that it also highlighted areas for improvement. Appendix: Survey Questionnaire 1. What is your gender?  Male  Female 2. Which age group do you fall in?  Under 16  16-25  26-35  36-45  46+ 3. How important do you consider the need to recycle?  Not at all  A little  Somewhat  Very  Extremely 4. How often do you recycle yourself?  Never  Rarely  Sometimes  Often  Always 5. How would you describe your attitude towards recycling?  I make a determined effort to recycle.  I only recycle if I get the chance to.  I only recycle if I am told to.  I rarely/don’t recycle because of the inconvenience.  I rarely/don’t recycle because I don’t think it’s a good thing. 6. Which of the following would make you more likely to recycle? (if you don’t always recycle already; you may choose more than one).  A recycling bin was nearby  If you could dispose of recycable trash all in one place  If you did not have to clean the items before recycling  Other: ______________________________________________________________ 7. Which of the following items can be recycled that you are aware of (check all that apply)?  Aluminum  Appliances such as refigerators  Bits of paper  Bottle/Jar caps/lids  Boxes with shiny paper on the outside  Cardboard  Clamshells  Detergent containers  Electronic items such as mobile phones  Envelopes with plastic windows  Gift wrap  Glass bottles  Greasy pizza boxes  Magnets in phone books  Newspaper  Plastic bags  Plastic bottles  Tissue boxes 8. Which of the following recycling schemes in Denver are you aware of (you may choose more than one)?  Large recyclables can be picked up using an online form at www.denvergov.org.  Denver’s e-cycle coupon program in partnership with Best Buy and Guaranteed Recycling Xperts.  Denver’s new ‘single-stream’ recycling process i.e. only one bin so no bagging.  Recyclables are separated from the regular trash at Denver’s waste management processing plant. 9. Which of the following justifications for recycling do you know of?  Recycling prevents materials that have economic value from going to waste.  Recycling programs are cheaper to operate than waste collection.  By recycling you can save money on household trash bills.  The recycling industry creates jobs and helps in economic development.  Recycling helps ease the demand for scarce natural resources.  Recycling has saved us from a potential landfill crisis in Denver. 10. Are you satisfied with Denver’s efforts at recycling? If so, specify the main reason, or if not, explain why.  Yes  No ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ Works Cited Mona Haji. (2009). Denver Colorado Newsletter. Volume 1, Issue 1. March 2009, Saunders, Katy. (2008). Recycling Tidbits. http://thelilaguide.com/forums/t/13958.aspx. Wieting, Lisa. (2006). Waste management offers single stream recycling. Sep. 7, 2006. http://denver.yourhub.com/FederalHeights/Stories/Environment/Lifestyle/Story~122191.aspx [Apr. 20, 2009]. Other sources Read More