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Recycling bias and reduction neglect

Nature Sustainability volume 6, pages 1418–1425 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Waste generation and mismanagement are polluting the planet at accelerating and unsustainable rates. Reducing waste generation is far more sustainable than managing waste after it has been created, which is why ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ is ordered the way it is, with reduce first and recycling as a last resort. However, our research finds strong evidence for a recycling bias and reduction neglect. Across two surveys (NTotal = 1,321), most participants perceived recycling as the most sustainable action to manage waste. This error decreased when different waste destinations were emphasized and when choice options were reduced. When asked in study 2 (N = 473), 53.9% of participants recognized that the product design stage offered the greatest potential for mitigating waste and its impacts. However, participants only felt empowered to enact change via their consumption (72.9%) and disposal choices (23.3%). For consumers and producers alike, policies and interventions should motivate source reduction and reuse, which could help correct the misplaced preference for recycling.

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Fig. 1: Perceptions of waste management strategies.
Fig. 2: Sorting-waste task and associated certainty in responses.
Fig. 3: Perceptions of what matters most for intervention and impact.

Data availability

Data for study 1 are not available to anyone other than the research team due to language included on the consent form; therefore, requests for study 1 data cannot be fulfilled. Data for study 2 are publicly available at openICPSR (https://www.openicpsr.org/openicpsr/project/181063/version/V1/view). All survey materials are included in Supplementary Sections 4 and 5. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work is funded by the Convergent Behavioral Science Initiative at the University of Virginia and by Indiana University’s Prepared for Environmental Change Grand Challenge initiative (S.Z.A.). We thank members of the Convergent Behavioral Science Initiative and the Attari Lab at Indiana University Bloomington for pretesting surveys and offering feedback, the Behavioral Research at Darden Lab for their help in pretesting and D. Miniard for her assistance.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Engineering Systems and Environment, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Michaela J. Barnett, Patrick I. Hancock & Leidy E. Klotz

  2. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA

    Shahzeen Z. Attari

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  1. Michaela J. Barnett
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  2. Patrick I. Hancock
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  3. Leidy E. Klotz
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  4. Shahzeen Z. Attari
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Contributions

M.J.B., P.I.H. and S.Z.A. designed the research with support from L.E.K. M.J.B. and P.I.H. analysed the data with support from S.Z.A. M.J.B., P.I.H., L.E.K. and S.Z.A. wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michaela J. Barnett.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The lead author owns a zero-waste refillery. All other authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Sustainability thanks Grant Donnelly, Katherine Lacasse and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Tables 1–4, additional analysis and survey text.

Reporting Summary

Source data

Source Data Table 1

Open-ended survey data response with response categorical codesheets.

Source Data Fig. 1

Participant numerical ranking of the waste management hierarchy and 3Rs in order of best to worst for the environment.

Source Data Fig. 2

Numerical data for participant waste-sorting task and accompanying codesheet.

Source Data Fig. 3

Numerical data for participant selection of the most impactful stages and accompanying codesheet.

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Barnett, M.J., Hancock, P.I., Klotz, L.E. et al. Recycling bias and reduction neglect. Nat Sustain 6, 1418–1425 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01185-7

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