A Stupidly Brilliant Way to Increase Recycling

Increasing Recycling

Incentives control everything in a person's behavior. From a decision like watching netflix, to donating to the red cross (gain self-esteem), the world runs on incentives. I'll talk more about this sometime later, because it's a large topic. Anyways, what are my incentives when I'm in the theater booth running lights with Andrew Pla, Clayton Webb, Mike Eckman, and (the dreadful) Nick Griffiths, and I finish water bottle. No, not a water bottle filled with alcohol like the stupid 2018 did in class, but just a regular water bottle. To me, it looks like here are my main options.

Let It Sit On My Desk

So this option works for a while until I actually try to get work done. I consider myself to have some OCD, so it bugs me whenever stuff is in the way. That's ironic because the whole booth is messy, but my part does seem cleaner than anyone else's. That's why Clayton keeps putting his energy drinks & calculus book there. However, at some point, it has to get to one of the other stages. When I let it sit on my desk though, there's a chance of me recycling it, rather than throwing it away.

Throw It Away

Incentives. I love it when people pretend to be selfless and think they are doing it for the greater good. However, when their backs are turned, I would bet that a lot more "stuff" happens then. For example, when no one is looking, all of those bottles on my desk, usually just end up in the trash. What would it take to recycle them? About 15 more steps through the commons to put them in the recycling bin, and another 15 to get back to what I was doing. How many to dump them into the trash can? 0. I just slide on my swivel chair, and it's gone.

Recycle It

Yeah, sometimes I recycle my stuff. Somewhere inside, it makes me feel better when I recycle. However, I'm lazy, and I feel like it's not just me. Of course, people care differently about different things, but for a lot of people, when everyone's back is turned, they're more likely to just throw their stuff away. Recycling? Unless there's a bin right next to it, or very close in a convenient location, it's a waste of time.

At School

If our school would just put a recycling bin in our booth & took it out regularly, recycling at our school would increase by 1%. We generate a lot of water bottles. We each bring them in, go through about 300 per show, and then throw 3/4ths of them away. Even today, I drink 2-3 bottles per day, and one of them usually ends up in the booth's trash. Another one usually ends up in one of the trash cans in the hallways.

We only have one place to recycle bottles, which is the commons. However, if this was increased to hallways, and maybe the booth, recycling would increase, simply because people would value their self-esteem to put the water bottle in the recycling bin, over having to walk another 15 steps in the wrong direction and back to throw their water out.

Takeaway

By putting a recycling bin near a trash can, recycling will increase far, far more than any advocating can do. So school... put recycling bins near the hallways at school & in the booth, and world: put a recycling bin near every major trash can, and you'll increase recycling a ton. If every nagger would instead just put a recycling bin where it where it was conveinent., they would be far more effective than the mediocre advocating.