Open Collections

Student Perspectives on Participating in a Campus-Wide Container Sharing Program

University of British Columbia. Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability; University of British Columbia. Alma Mater Society; University of British Columbia. Campus and Community Planning

As society is recognizing the presence of the climate crisis, zero waste initiatives are of utmost importance for the University of British Columbia to implement. As per UBC’s goal to be zero waste by 2030, this study investigates what factor among five (hygiene, transparency, cost, social influence, and convenience) is the most important in increasing students’ willingness to participate in a campus-wide container sharing program. One hundred and sixty-nine participants completed a Qualtrics survey distributed through convenience sampling and consisted of a 5-point Likert scale, multiple-choice and open-ended questions. We hypothesized social influence would be the most important factor, but our results led us to retain our hypothesis. The self-report data revealed that hygiene is the most important factor, followed by transparency, convenience, cost, and social influence. These results suggest that UBC should ensure the proper cleaning of containers in their proposed container sharing program. Our findings may have been impacted by a change in behaviour and attitudes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Future research should explore the evolving role hygiene might have in other zero-waste initiatives that entail the sharing of products. 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.”

Report

eng

2021-06-14

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/78630

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/