THE EFFECTS OF PUBLIC COMMITMENT AND GROUP FEEDBACK ON CURBSIDE RECYCLING

This study examined the effects of three community interventions that rely on socially mediated consequences, rather than financial incentiv es, to promote consumer recycling. Households in the commitment-only g roup signed a letter making a public commitment to recycle and giving permission to publish their names in a local newspaper. The feedback-o nly group received weekly feedback on pounds of recyclable paper gener ated by their group. A combined-intervention group received a combinat ion of the two previous interventions. Relative to baseline, the feedb ack-only and the combined-intervention groups increased the weight of recyclable paper by 25.47% and 40.00%, respectively. In contrast, neit her the commitment-only group nor a no-intervention control group show ed substantial changes over the same period. The implications of these interventions for developing community-wide recycling programs are di scussed.