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Effect of Emily on Sorting

University of British Columbia. Campus and Community Planning

The aim of this study is to examine sorting behaviour at the University of British Columbia (UBC) based on exposure to a campus wide sustainability ambassador named ‘Emily,’ a cartoon character. The experimental condition consisted of a waste disposal unit with four streams: organics, recycling, paper, and garbage with the poster of Emily. The control condition consisted of these four streams of waste disposal units at a different location, without the poster of Emily. The study was performed over a two-week period, yielding 10 days of measurement. Researchers weighed each of the four bins in the control and experimental condition, and then sorted through the bins in order to identify the number of contaminants in each bin. It was hypothesized that the presence of Emily would increase sorting behaviour, thereby yielding a higher mean kg/contamination ratio. Qualitative measures included most incorrectly sorted contaminant count and change in mean kg/contamination ratio over time. Findings from this study conclude that the presence of Emily had no impact on sorting behaviours. Also cutlery was found to be highy incorrectly sorted. Further analysis will be needed to determine what education people will need in order to effectively sort waste. 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.”

Text

UBC Social Ecological Economic Development Studies (SEEDS) Student Report; University of British Columbia. PSYC 321

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0343103

Arts, Faculty of; Psychology, Department of

Unreviewed

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