Garbage
Just about everyone agrees that one way to keep the world from
wallowing in garbage is to recycle. The problem is how to get folks to
comply by sorting their stuff.
A German psychologist contends that we're handling the garbage glut
wrong. Instead of creating "environmentally appropriate attitudes," as
environmentalists would have it, we'd do better capitalizing on the
social structure of apartment buildings and the families who live
there.
It certainly wasn't conviction that separated good from bad garbage
sorters among residents of six Heidelberg apartment buildings, reports
Stefan E. Hormuth, Ph.D. He told the annual meeting of the American
Psychological Association in San Francisco that close relationships with
neighbors and family organization proved more important than green
beliefs.
Hormuth looked at the weakest link in the recycling
chain--compliance in large apartment buildings. In Germany, residents not
only have to sort bottles and cans, they also have to separate
compostables from other garbage. Sorting, he says, is most likely to
happen when one person in a household is responsible for throwing out the
garbage. The best arrangement--not good news for wives--is when the
person who prepares the food is also the one who gets rid of it.
Single-person households are the least compliant garbage sorters,
Hormuth found to his surprise. It overturns the conventional wisdom that
younger folk are more environmentally conscious. And job pressures didn't
seem to play a part in their poor performance.
Older people were actually much more conscientious in sorting out
compostable garbage, probably for several reasons: They had more social
contacts with and felt more responsibility toward fellow residents; and
the older generation is more likely to remember less affluent times and
thus are less likely to get rid of trash in a dash.
Waste, Hormuth agrees, is a terrible thing to mind. The best way to
get around trash-avoidance problems is to design kitchens and containers
that accommodate sorting in the heat of activity.
PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Cutting the Glut: It'll take contact,
not just conviction, in the cities.
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