"Haphazard" and Inefficient Adoption:
Recycling has become an integral part in the daily lives of most Canadian businesses.
Although the concept has been around for some time now, many companies have yet to completely
close the loop eliminating recyclables from the landfil - bound waste stream. Currently, the
system relies on corporate social responsibility and individual employee responsibility to
recycle.
Faced with minimal encouraging programs to increase recycling; behaviour studies show less
than 50% of all recyclable material is actually recycled. Waste that is taken out to the
landfill costs Canadian companies per tonne of material. These landfill costs could be easily and
significantly reduced with simple recycling practices and equipment.
Environmental and Worker Costs:
Landfills contribute to groundwater pollution and take up valuable land that could
be used for habitat and ecological development.
Recycling programs effectively divert large amounts of waste from the landfill and redirect
it into processes that convert it into marketable products once again.
A number of behavioural studies have shown that employees are less motivated and more error prone
when they feel their employer doesn't care about the environment. "If they don't care why should I?"
Reminders and Recycling signs:
A marketing strategy called AIDA, an acronym for Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action
promotes continuous awareness campaigns incorporated into everyday work life.
Through the use of prompts placed above garbage bins, it is possible to
have an impact on the employees to encourage positive recycling behaviour. Since recycling
is taken for granted, employees need to be reminded to do it. Prompts are a tool for
reminding employees who are not necessarily ignorant to recycling habits, but whom might
just have forgotten due to convenience.
The most common cause of a recycling campaign not being successful in influencing employees
to recycle was because the campaigns were lacking in their ability to relate to the employees.
Evidence for the ineffectiveness of such recycling promotions can be found in your garbage containers
throughout the workplace – recyclable materials are not being disposed of properly.
It is then
important to develop a new approach to motivate all employees to recycle. By utilizing the
successful methods of advertising consumer products by which employees are frequently exposed
to many forms of media and applying them to environmental ideas, the
project will demonstrate the effectiveness of properly promoting recycling awareness.
