Andrea Lockerbie takes a closer look at how insights from behavioural science can help improve recycling performance and what we can learn from recent innovative initiatives.
Running a communications campaign to highlight a new recycling service or to urge people to recycle more is often the approach taken. But will it have any impact on those who just aren’t engaged with it? And will it result in lasting behaviour change?
As Gavin Ellis, Co-CEO at Hubbub, explains: “Behaviour change requires repetition, reinforcement, and alignment with the physical environment – not just a burst of communication.”
For Ellis, the best campaigns are ‘the ones that make the right behaviour feel easy, normal and visible’. Hubbub’s Community Fridge Network is an example of one that removes friction and adds a social layer.
“Sharing surplus food becomes a normal, visible behaviour in the community, not a private ‘good intention.’ It shifts the norm from ‘waste happens’ to ‘sharing is what we do here’,” he explains.
Reducing friction – or making something easier to do – is very important.
“The right systems and infrastructure – like effective bins and reliable waste collections – need to be in place so people are able to do the desired behaviour, before we try to make them more willing to do it – otherwise they can be easily demotivated by any barriers they face,” Ellis says. “Messaging alone can’t fix a broken system.”
The importance of having the right system in place is nicely illustrated by the award-winning project between operator First Mile and ATG Entertainment, which runs theatres and live entertainment venues which see hundreds of different visitors pass through each night.
Waste audits had revealed that front-of-house bin infrastructure and signage were ineffective, and there was a lack of clear guidance for staff and visitors.
To address this, bins were co-designed with venue managers, tested, and then introduced across venues. The new design features clear, colour-coded, icon-based labels showing common theatre items, such as plastic cups and paper programmes.
Five waste streams were introduced in line with Simpler Recycling rules: general waste, cardboard, glass, dry mixed recycling, food and coffee waste. Staff were trained; bin placement was visible; and work with the procurement teams ensured that the impact of any new packaging was assessed.
Monthly audits and live tracking showed venues their progress, and after just three months, contamination rates fell from 85.81% to 8.01%, and the front-of-house recycling rate increased from 8.53% to 68.35%.
For Ellis, at Hubbub, the strongest interventions combine clear, consistent infrastructure – standardised bin systems with simple signage, for example – convenient access; and reinforcing communications that engage, educate, and build confidence and motivation.
“If one of these is missing, impact is limited,” Ellis says. “If all three are aligned, behaviour change becomes much more likely and long-lasting.”
Prompts at the right time
Timely prompts also work. “Intervening at the moment of decision (bin signage, food storage guidance in the kitchen, for example) is often more effective than general awareness campaigns,” says Ellis.
Hubbub and Lambeth Council’s ‘Can We Talk Dirty’ campaign, launched earlier this year, is focused on reducing food contamination in the dry recycling stream.
Using the principle of timely prompts, the digital ad campaign is targeted around evening time, when people are most likely to be cooking, eating and disposing of food packaging.
Many recycling campaigns try to reach everyone with all the information at once, but this approach rarely works. Targeting different groups is usually more effective, as is stripping the messaging back to the few actions that matter the most. This is the approach ‘Can We Talk Dirty?’ has taken.
Ellis says: “WRAP’s data shows that younger people and renters are much less engaged with recycling. We developed ‘Can We Talk Dirty?’ with this specific audience in mind and landed on Brixton as the perfect place to reach them.”
“Early insights from our focus groups show that this audience really resonated with the campaign, which is exactly what we need – we’re not trying to change the behaviour of the people who’re already doing it right.”
“In practice, this means tailoring both message and channel – from hyper-local community engagement to digital nudges or trusted messengers like neighbours, community leaders, or even bin crews.”
The campaign has a cheekier-than-usual approach, using unexpected messaging to grab attention and get this section of the population to think differently about how they recycle.
Its results are due to be shared publicly in June – but Ellis says the reaction to the campaign has been ‘fantastic’ from residents, as well as from local authorities and waste professionals across the country.
“Recent focus groups suggest that our playful, bright approach landed exactly where we wanted it to. People found it more engaging and impactful than the ‘traditional’ recycling communications they’re used to seeing.”
“By using humour and relatable language, we’re able to hook people in first, then deliver the simple, practical messages they need to recycle better.”
The campaign’s success is being measured through three main lenses:
- Audience surveying and focus groups to understand changes in awareness and behaviour around emptying and rinsing food packaging, as well as preferences around recycling communication styles;
- Engagement with campaign content like reach, video views and watch time;
- Waste indicators, like changes in recycling tonnages and contamination rates – measured through randomised sampling of the targeted recycling rounds.
Humour and storytelling as an agent of change
Tunisia has a big issue with bread waste: baguettes are a staple food eaten at every meal and an ingrained part of the country’s culture. As a result, around 900,000 baguettes are wasted each day, equivalent to 113,000 tonnes of bread waste a year.
To tackle Tunisia’s issue of food waste, promote healthier eating habits, and strengthen family bonds by advocating shared family meals, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) collaborated with Ogilvy Paris, and the result was the creation of a family-focused TV series called ‘Salla Salla’, which launched at the start of 2025.
Working with a famous Tunisian scriptwriter, the storyline cleverly blends traditional views with modern life and adds in family drama, with food at the heart of it. It uses humour and entertainment to unlock social change, on the premise that when people laugh, they are more open, and when they are more open, they are more ready to reflect and change.
Alongside the TV series, a social media campaign has been run to complement and extend the content – to reach people in their everyday lives and provide consistency and continuous reinforcement of the messaging.
Around six months after its launch, ‘Salla Salla’ had become the 4th most viewed show in Tunisia, resulting in 33% of people having family dinners more often and a 22% reduction in bread consumption.
Improving food waste participation
Another recent initiative, focused on improving food waste recycling participation, has found that disruptive interventions are particularly effective. In Devon, household food waste collections have been in place for over a decade, but a section of the population still does not use the service.
A food waste participation improvement project in Teignbridge, funded by Devon Authorities Strategic Waste Committee and carried out in partnership with WRAP and Behaviour Change, set out to trial different interventions to boost participation.
Qualitative research was first conducted with local citizens, which provided crucial insight into local food waste recycling behaviours, and this was used to help shape the interventions.
Over three weeks in the trial areas, recycling collection staff, using smartwatches, logged the households that didn’t put their food waste out. If a household did not present its food waste caddy for three consecutive weeks, it was classed as ‘not participating’ and targeted for intervention.
Pilot 1: Motivational interventions
The first pilot tested the use of motivational interventions, using postcards and recycling box stickers. These gently encouraged people to recycle their food waste.
Properties which received the interventions were monitored for another three consecutive weeks. If they still didn’t use the service, they received a second intervention with a message saying ‘We’ve noticed you aren’t recycling your food waste. Can you tell us why?’ leading them to an incentivised survey.
The top reasons given included: home composting food waste; feeding food waste to their animals; not generating enough food waste; not having a food waste container; and other reasons, including hygiene and space concerns.
Overall, these motivational interventions resulted in 12.6% of the targeted non-participants starting to use the food waste service.
Pilot 2: Disruptive interventions
In this trial, non-participating households received a bin hanger on their residual waste bin. The messaging itself was light touch, asking people if they had seen their missing food waste bin.
Interestingly, as the bin hangers were being placed on bins, people would often come out of their homes to find out what was happening, creating opportunities for positive interactions.
After this first intervention, there was a 22% uplift in participation; for those who still did not participate after receiving a bin tag, a bin sticker was used to seal their residual bin after collection. This measure, which required the sticker to be removed to open the bin, resulted in a 30% uplift in participation.
Overall, 43% of the properties that received the disruptive interventions started putting their food waste out for collection over the 11-week pilot.
Use of the stickers and bin tags in this trial harnessed the power of social norms, whereby people are influenced by the actions of those around them. For example, if you are the only house on your street that receives a bin tag, you are more likely to change your behaviour to fit in with everyone else.
In this trial, the disruptive interventions, which were more direct and attention-grabbing, resulted in significantly higher impact than the motivational interventions.
Due to the success in Teignbridge, further funding has been made available to roll out the project across Devon, with each district deciding which option to replicate.
In the coming months, the areas that have received the pilots will be revisited to see if the levels of participation have been sustained.
What can we conclude?
The right systems need to be in place, so that taking action is easy; use prompts or disruptors at the right time; keep messages simple; focus on specific groups and tailor language and the means of reaching them; use humour; and reinforce messages consistently.
