Motivating Beverage Container Recycling on a College Campus

Maintaining our materials base for production in the face of declining energy and materials resources requires effective procedures to encourage recycling of scarce resources. The present research assessed the effects of a prompt, raffle and contest procedure on aluminum can recycling in college residence halls. A reversal design was used. The results showed that the prompt, raffle and contest procedure was much more effective than the baseline condition in which prompts to recycle and a convenient recycling container were provided. The implication of these findings for our general energy problem are discussed. Imports provide more than half the aluminum, iron ore, tin, chromium, asbestos, and nearly two dozen other mineral resources used in manufacturing in the United States [1 ] . Since most of these materials are found in nature in an oxidized state, energy is required to reduce them to a usable form; e.g., to produce aluminum from alumina. In fact, energy use is a pervasive aspect of the entire materials use cycle, from mining and transportation and processing to distribution and disposal or reprocessing. Nearly 16 per cent of United States energy consumption is now associated with materials production [1 ] . Significantly, as the supplies of these resources dwindle, the proportion of energy required by the materials cycle is expected to increase, due to higher costs of extraction, transportation and processing [ 2 ] . Price increases are expected to follow increased costs. Further, while it was once thought that abundant resources (e.g., aluminum) could be substituted readily for scarce resources (e.g., copper), it is now clear