The fight for CDL in Australia

Monetary incentives can be a very effective way to incite behaviour change. The success of container deposit legislation (CDL) in reducing littering behaviour and increase recycling rates is a great example of this.

A container deposit scheme involves collecting a monetary deposit on drink containers at point of sale. When the container is returned to a redemption centre or the seller, so is the deposit. Container deposit legislation (CDL) exists in many countries in Europe (and elsewhere) and has existed in the state of South Australia since 1977. There are many benefits to having of a container deposit scheme, including reducing  littering and waste that ends up in landfill or polluting the ground or ocean, increasing recycling rates which reduces need for virgin materials, and helping the homeless find a way to get some extra money by “hunting” for and returning discarded containers. According to EPA South Australia, 98% of South Australians are support the CDL state-wide and nationally, believing it to be an effective way to reduce rubbish and increase recycling. CDL was introduced in the Northern Territory in 2012, but was repealed when CocaCola and Schweppes sued the state. NSW is facing a similar problem.

Over the last few months, citizens of Sydney (and all over the state) have been raising quite a fuss about getting a 10-cent container deposit scheme implemented in NSW. A 10-cent refund is supported by over 80% of the community (Clean Up Australia) and is one of the most effective ways to address beverage container waste and littering. However, big guns like Coca-Cola and Schweppes have been fighting against them, arguing that CDL isn’t the best or only way to reduce waste. Seriously? We’ve been trying other methods and they aren’t really working, so what’s the problem? The brands are big enough and so well-known that something like a container deposit surely can’t hurt their image too much. In fact, it might help it.

Martin Place demonstration

The Boomerang Alliance, made up of 27 Australian environmental groups campaigning for recycling (including Take 3 and Responsible Runners), has been adamantly supporting implementation of CDL. A few weeks ago, they held a demonstration in Martin Place that involved dumping massive amounts of bottles and cans all over the square in order to show people how much we waste in Australia. The fact that South Australia’s recycling rate is around 85%, whereas NSW is around 50%, is a pretty good indicator that CDL is, in fact, effective. Similar campaigns are underway all around Australia, so hopefully progress will be made soon.

Littering aaand…

The psychology of littering both fascinates and disturbs me, so this is likely the first of many posts about peoples’ behavior regarding waste. The photo on the left shows two of the many clearly-marked rubbish and recycling bins situated around Bondi Beach. Despite the presence of these bins, there are still heaps of bottles, cigarette butts, napkins, and other rubbish that wind up scattered all over the beach…and eventually wind up in the ocean. I volunteer to help clean up Bondi with Responsible Runners each Sunday and we are always shocked by how much we can collect in just 30 minutes.

So…What makes people litter? There are many factors that influence littering behavior: culture, education, law/policy, social & situational context, the designed environment, etc. These factors vary significantly from country to country, so I’ll focus on Australia for this post. According to the world’s largest study of littering behavior, “Understanding Littering Behaviour in Australia” prepared by Community Change Consultants for the Beverage Industry Environment Council, the main reasons people litter are:

• lazy or could not be bothered (35%)
• no bin being nearby (19%)
• habit and forgetfulness (14%)
• the inconvenience of continuing to hold on to the waste material (14%)
• there was no ashtray available (10%)

Overall, peoples’ attitude toward littering is negative and they feel guilty for doing it. However, the litterers clearly don’t feel guilty enough to bother to find a bin, and 25% of them think that litter is mainly the local council’s responsibility. Also, most litter was observed to occur within 5 meters from a bin, so there goes the excuse of not having a bin nearby. So, what can you do? These are just a few of the many intriguing insights that the Community Change Consultants uncovered during their extensive studies. You can download the report and other Littering Behaviour Studies at the Australia Food & Grocery Council website. It’s definitely worth a browse.

A key take-away here is that the ins and outs of littering behavior are very complex. It’s not clear how (if it’s even possible) to design a fool-proof environment to completely prevent littering, although a variety tactics have been tried: anti-littering signage, clearly-marked rubbish and recycling bins of various designs, stricter littering policies, etc. From the study, it seems like implementing a greater variety of these tactics in one area has the best result, but the overall impact on littering is still not very significant. Still, just throwing out every tactic we can think of isn’t a good solution either. Rather, each environment needs to be designed with intent, based on user observation and testing, because it isn’t until we observe our products in use that we uncover the unexpected consequences of our design choices. (This is why designers always follow an iterative design process!) Here is an example of one of the study’s surprising observations:

“On one occasion a mobile garbage bin lid was closed by one person to rest a drink on top and within the next twenty minutes not only was the bin lid covered with disposable objects but people then deposited their waste around the bin, on the ground. The most interesting aspect of this observation was that the bin remained empty while waste piled up on top of its lid, although other bins were within 6 metres of the one with the closed lid.” (Understanding Littering Behaviour in Australia, p58)

Clearly, bin design affects behavior. You can change the size of bin opening, the presence of lid or ashtray, etc. but until you watch people using it, you won’t really know how your design is going to work in every situation.

It’s going to be a long, iterative process of designing environment, education, product, and policy to really reduce littering. If you don’t want to wait that long, then do what I do – pick it up and toss it properly yourself!