A study from the University of B.C.’s department of psychology says recycling rates in B.C. and Alberta could be enhanced if people returning containers were able to choose between reclaiming the 10-cent deposit or, instead, having a small chance at winning $1,000.
“Often when we’re looking at such a small reward like 10 cents, people don’t really care about it too much and we’d rather go for that larger chance at a larger reward,” said Jade Radke, a UBC PhD student and the lead author on the study.
“We have more excitement with those things, higher hope. It’s kind of just like playing the lottery. You kind of do it for fun a little bit as well.”
The research paper, Probabilistic refunds increase beverage container recycling behaviour in British Columbia and Alberta, was published in the latest version of Waste Management and co-authored by UBC’s Jiaying Zhou, who is well known for her studies on behaviour and waste reduction.
The findings come as waste continues to choke landfills or end up as litter despite sophisticated recycling programs in places like Canada.
Information from the World Economic Forum and the International Aluminum Institute says around two trillion beverage containers are produced globally every year, but only 34 per cent of glass bottles, 40 per cent of plastic bottles and 70 per cent of aluminum cans are recycled.
UBC’s Radke and Zhou, along with student Stella Argentopoulos and professor Elizabeth Dunn, devised experiments in food courts and at a food festival in Alberta where they encouraged people with beverage containers to return them and make a choice between a 100 per cent chance of getting $0.10, a 10 per cent chance of getting $1, a one per cent chance of getting $10, a 0.1 per cent chance of getting $100, or a 0.01 per cent chance of getting $1,000.
More than a quarter of respondents in one part of the study chose the $1,000 gamble — the most selected choice out of the options — and reported higher anticipatory happiness.
Would you prefer a chance to win $1,000 if you recycle or a guaranteed 10 cents?
Generally, their study found that, “a probabilistic refund is preferred over the certain refund with the same expected payoff, is associated with an immediate boost in anticipatory happiness, and can increase recycling behaviour.”
The recycling lottery choice is something that’s been in place in Norway since 1997. Combined with strong environmental values and the convenient locations of recycling machines in the country, the lottery choice is contributing to Norway’s total beverage container recycling rate of 96.7 per cent, the UBC study authors said.
In B.C. and Alberta, the same rates are 79.6 per cent and 84.9 per cent, respectively, according to the UBC study, making them leaders within Canada.
The study’s authors are working with provincial return-it systems to study the lottery option more and determine if it could be implemented to get recycling rates on par with Norway’s.
“Adding a probabilistic refund option might be able to close the gap,” said Radke.
Something the study didn’t consider is what impact a lottery option would have on individuals who return beverage containers for income — people known in Vancouver as binners.
The paper’s authors said they plan to include them in future work.
Jutta Gutberlet with the University of Victoria’s Community-based Research Laboratory has studied binners for 20 years, though, and said their activities are a low-barrier way to earn wages.
“The first motivation is economic,” she said, adding that it’s unclear if they would select a lottery option on their high-volume of returns over the guaranteed 10 cents per item.
Gutberlet said her research has generally found that binners would prefer a higher deposit, such as 25 cents, to make the containers more valuable and reflect, “the work and also the environmental contribution of returning these materials into the circular economy.”
