At a glance
This behavior change project focuses on student composting. The main objective of this project is to identify perceived… Read full summary
- Funding received
- 2010-2011
- Large
- Awarded
- $12,203
- Funding partners
-
- Services and Activities Fee (SAF)
- Website & social links
This behavior change project focuses on student composting. The main objective of this project is to identify perceived motivations and barriers the campus community has to composting, and determine what communication methods on signs are most effective in fostering behavior change. The results of this project will be valuable to Housing and Food Services (HFS), Building Services, and student and staff led groups such as SEED and Green Teams that spend significant resources on campus signage, without studying the effectiveness of their communication methods. In the long-term, this project will contribute to increased composting on campus, which will reduce carbon emissions and waste.
This behavior change project focuses on student composting. The main objective of this project is to identify perceived motivations and barriers the campus community has to composting, and determine what communication methods on signs are most effective in fostering behavior change. The results of this project will be valuable to Housing and Food Services (HFS), Building Services, and student and staff led groups such as SEED and Green Teams that spend significant resources on campus signage, without studying the effectiveness of their communication methods. In the long-term, this project will contribute to increased composting on campus, which will reduce carbon emissions and waste.
Daniel Brody
Project lead
- dobb14@uw.edu
- Affiliation
- Student
Lindsay Fromme
Team member
- ljfromme@uw.edu
- Affiliation
- Student
Define the campus environmental problem that you are attempting to solve:
The University’s Climate Action Plan identifies the importance of waste reduction in order to reduce green house gases. One area of interest is promoting food composting. In recent years, the availability of composting bins has increased on campus; yet, it you look inside a bin it is obvious that there is confusion about composting. Many items that are not compostable end up in the compost bin and many items that are compostable end up in the garbage. The main problem is that people are not using compost bins appropriately.
Describe your proposed solution to this problem:
We are interested in using signs as a communication method to promote the appropriate use of compost bins – this requires changing an individual’s behavior. Changing an individual’s behavior is essential to achieving a sustainable future. UW’s Climate Action Plan reflects the importance of behavior change, stating that about 20% of the necessary green house gas reductions are planned to be achieved through behavior change. Changing an individual’s behavior can influence the desired goal of increasing the appropriate use of compost bins and reducing waste.
We propose to work on engaging students, faculty, and staff to foster composting by using community-based social marketing. Community-based social marketing has been shown to be effective at bringing about behavior change. This approach involves: identifying barriers to a sustainable behavior, designing a strategy that utilizes behavior change tools, piloting the strategy with a small segment of a community, and finally, evaluating the impact of the program once it has been implemented across a community. We are interested specifically in testing the effectiveness of various sign messages at influencing composting behavior. After identifying the audience’s motivations and barriers to composting, we will design three communication messages on signs using three different approaches. These signs will then be placed in areas with compost bins. By monitoring the levels of composting before and after the signs are installed, we can begin to identify which message is fostering composting behavior. Furthermore, after a period we will remove the signs and continue monitoring. This will provide information on which of the messages promoted long-term composting behavior that lasts even without the signs presence. At the end of this approach, we will be able to provide the University with an effective communication approach for fostering appropriate composting campus wide.
What form and amount of student leadership will your project involve?
This project will be led by three students: two graduate students and one undergraduate. Professor Stanley Asah, from the School of Forest Resources, will act as an advisor and provide support about the methodology behind fostering behavior change. We also plan on working closely with other stakeholders in increasing the appropriate use of composting such as ESS, Facilities, HSF, and SEED.
What type and amount of outreach and education will your project involve?
This project will look to gain input from campus organizations that are currently interested in promoting the use of composting. These organizations include: ESS, Facilities, and SEED. The greatest strength of using a community-based social marketing approach with behavior change is the emphasis on understanding the target audience of the resulting communication method. We will gain understanding of the University’s community attitudes and reasons for composting and use these to inform the communication methods we devise. This will engage a wide variety of people on campus and will ensure that communications are designed based on their perceptions of composting. This will ultimately ensure a more effective communication strategy.
What amount of funds do you anticipate your project will require from the CSF?
We anticipate our project will require about $5,000 dollars from CSF. This funding will go towards a small stipend for the three students implementing the project (about $4,500 or $1,500 per student over two quarters), and the cost of producing a survey and developing the signs (about $500).
Request amount and budget
Problem statement
The University's Climate Action Plan identifies the importance of waste reduction as a means to reducing greenhouse gases. One area of interest cited is increasing food composting on campus. In recent years, the availability of composting bins has increased on campus; yet, if you look inside a bin it is obvious that there is confusion about composting. Many items that are not compostable end up in the compost bin and many compostable items end up in the garbage. When composting bins are not used correctly they often become too contaminated to decompose, and must be taken to the landfill. Addressing the correct use of composting bins is important because it will reduce waste by limiting landfill, contributing to the recycling of nutrients and the reduction of greenhouse gases through a more efficient waste management system.
Determining which communication techniques are most effective in fostering sustainable behavior change will be a useful tool for groups already promoting composting on campus such as SEED, Green Teams, Housing and Food Services (HFS), and Building Services. Groups such as SEED have already done a lot of work creating signs for composting, but these signs are not tested for effectiveness and are not based on proven strategies to internalize behavior change. This project will provide groups with information to ensure that their messaging and sign products can be effective. Information about motivations and barriers to composting on campus can also help identify further projects and initiatives these groups may want to implement and effective communication techniques for promoting composting behavior can also be applied to other areas of sustainable behavior change.
Measure the impacts
The goal of this project is to increase the amount of uncontaminated compost on campus. Several quantifiable measures will be used to determine how much compost is sent to composting facilities. The first is the number of compost totes that are taken to the Cedar Grove compost facility from dorm cafeterias. HFS receives an invoice each month with the number of totes taken to the facility, and will provide our research team with this information. Since there is a concern that totes may not be completely full when they are taken off site, we will also weigh totes. As part of our proposal we are asking for money to purchase weigh scales that can be used to weigh compost totes (one for 1101 and one for The Eight). We are working with the student led group SEED to set up monitoring parties where we will systematically measure the weight of compost totes before and after our project is implemented. The last quantifiable measure we are interested in tracking is the observed amount of contamination in compost totes. Using a Likert Scale measuring from no contamination to complete contamination, we hope to assess if there are improvements in lowering compost contamination.
For these three quantifiable measures, we will measure success on whether: the number of compost totes taken by Cedar Grove increases, the weight of compost increases, and if contamination decreases. We intend to report this information to campus groups that are involved in composting which include: HFS, Facilities, Building Services, and SEED
Currently, there are no requirements or mandates by the UW, City, or State law. The City of Seattle has set forth Food Service Packaging Requirements, which has some inference that appropriate containers for the collection of recyclable and compostable materials and food packaging are provided within food service areas for appropriate collection of materials. We are going above and beyond the mandate that composting facilities are provided, and aim to improve proper usage of the required composting containers.
Education and outreach goals
We will be conducting outreach in student cafeterias to recruit participation in focus group interviews and wider campus surveys. We will also be working with student led groups, visiting classes as guest speakers and seeking other opportunities to publicize research such as the 2011 Campus Sustainability Summit.
The main outreach goals of our program are getting organizations that work with composting interested in the findings of our project. It is imperative that the work we do provides information for future communication work around composting on campus. We want to inform entities across campus about how to promote composting behavior with students. To do so we are working with these entities and will submit a full report of our results and recommendations when this project ends.
Student involvement
This project is student led. The project team will consist of three students – two graduate and one undergraduate. This project will gain input from campus organizations that are currently interested in promoting the use of composting. These organizations include: ESS, Facilities, and SEED. The greatest strength of using a community-based social marketing approach with behavior change is the emphasis on understanding the target audience of the resulting communication method. The target audience for this project is people who use the dorm cafeterias – mostly students who live in the dorms. Our focus groups and survey will rely on information from this target audience and will ensure that student interests and perceptions shape communication interventions. We also hope to engage a wide variety of students in assisting in monitoring efforts. Weighing compost totes will require volunteers to weigh totes every week. We have attended SEED meetings and plan to collaborate with SEED to coordinate student volunteers to participate in this role.