Exploring the relationship between municipal promotion and education investments and recycling rate performance in Ontario, Canada

By: Dr. Calvin Lakhanhttp://wastewiki.info.yorku.ca/lakhanc@yorku.ca

Overview• Study examined the effects of municipal promotion and

education (P&E) investments on the recycling rates of recyclables found in Ontario's Blue Box Program

• Do P&E investments lead to increased recycling rates?• Do different levels of P&E investment (i.e. more dollars

invested) yield different results in terms of recycling performance?

• How does locality affect promotion and education efficacy?

Methods

Data obtained from WDO Data Call (10 years, 223 municipalities)

Regression performed that examined how recycling rates (RR)were influenced by :

PE = Municipal promotion and education expenditures (per household) ($)PAYT = 1 if municipality implements pay as you throw scheme (0 otherwise)CURB = Percentage of households with access to curbside recycling collection (%)INC = Median income Per Capita ($)AGE = Median AgeEDUC = Percentage of Population with College education or higher (%)DEN = Population Density per square kilometer

Results

• No link between P&E investments and municipal recycling rates

• No link between levels of P&E investments and municipal recycling rates

• Locality (where municipalities are located) have no affect on the effectiveness of P&E investments

Conclusions• It’s not that P&E isn’t effective, it’s that municipalities

need to be prudent about what types of P&E are most effective, and when.

• Little need to further stress the importance of recycling – message already resonates with Ontarians

• P&E messaging needs to be updated to reflect specific situations (multi res and public spaces) and key issues (changing demography)