Some communities are trying contests and other financial incentives to get people to properly sort their recyclable garbage. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
Some communities are trying contests and other financial incentives to
get people to properly sort their recyclable garbage. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Local governments can make money selling the paper, aluminum and
some other items people set aside for recycling, but improper sorting can
clog the waste stream and add to costs. So, some communities are
randomly handing out cash or other rewards to citizens who do recycling
right.
Kate Krebs is with the National Recycling Coalition. She favors
incentive programs that get people to be less complacent about sorting
their trash.
“It isn’t top of mind anymore…it isn’t as easy as consumers want it to be
or they just have such busy lives that they haven’t really imbedded the habit
in their lifestyle.”
Krebs says the best incentive programs choose their winners fairly and
then spread the word to other people – creating some peer pressure. She
says recycling incentives are similar to other businesses where people do
things like offer coupons to keep people interested in a product or a
service.
For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.