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The effect of bin order on waste sorting behaviour Quemado, Diego; Chang, Ching Hsuan Jason; Tang, Julian

Abstract

To test how the order of bins at waste disposal stations impacts sorting behaviour, 180 participants were observed disposing waste at a restaurant in three conditions of different bin orders, with 60 participants in each condition. The first condition had the bin order of: Compost, Garbage, and Recycle. The second condition had the bin order of: Garbage, Compost, and Recycle. The third condition had the bin order: Recycle, Compost, and Garbage. Waste sorting accuracy was measured as the percentage of the total number of items that each participant sorted into the correct bins, recorded independently by three observers. The means of the three conditions were 60.43% for condition 1, 66.50% for condition 2, and 59.76% for condition 3. Inter-rater reliability was high, with 81% of data collected in agreement. A one-way ANOVA was used to find any significant differences between the three means and independent samples t-tests were used to find any significant differences between any two conditions. All statistical tests found no significant differences, suggesting that the position of the garbage bin at waste disposal stations does not matter, and that future studies are needed to further explore the impact of bin order on waste sorting behaviour. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”

Item Metadata

Title
The effect of bin order on waste sorting behaviour
Creator
Quemado, Diego; Chang, Ching Hsuan Jason; Tang, Julian
Contributor
University of British Columbia. Campus and Community Planning
Date Issued
2015-04-28
Description
To test how the order of bins at waste disposal stations impacts sorting behaviour, 180 participants were observed disposing waste at a restaurant in three conditions of different bin orders, with 60 participants in each condition. The first condition had the bin order of: Compost, Garbage, and Recycle. The second condition had the bin order of: Garbage, Compost, and Recycle. The third condition had the bin order: Recycle, Compost, and Garbage. Waste sorting accuracy was measured as the percentage of the total number of items that each participant sorted into the correct bins, recorded independently by three observers. The means of the three conditions were 60.43% for condition 1, 66.50% for condition 2, and 59.76% for condition 3. Inter-rater reliability was high, with 81% of data collected in agreement. A one-way ANOVA was used to find any significant differences between the three means and independent samples t-tests were used to find any significant differences between any two conditions. All statistical tests found no significant differences, suggesting that the position of the garbage bin at waste disposal stations does not matter, and that future studies are needed to further explore the impact of bin order on waste sorting behaviour. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”
Subject
waste disposal; waste sorting behaviour; recycling; garbage; compost; bin order; environmental psychology
Genre
Report
Type
Text
Language
eng
Series
University of British Columbia. PSYC 321; UBC Social Ecological Economic Development Studies (SEEDS) Student Report
Date Available
2016-02-25
Provider
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada
DOI
10.14288/1.0224801
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/2429/57054
Affiliation
Arts, Faculty of; Psychology, Department of
Campus
UBCV
Peer Review Status
Unreviewed
Scholarly Level
Undergraduate
Rights URI
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/
Aggregated Source Repository
DSpace

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada