Tag Archive for: Recycling

There is no unreachable audience! Making recycling sexy – and fun

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This post looks at how the so-called hard-to-reach audiences can be addressed in a creative, and somewhat surprising way. Environmental communication at its best.

Warning: This post contains crude language.

 

When working in the environmental sector, you’ll come across a target audience that’s considered hard to reach.

I’ve talked about the importance of knowing your audience before, but in the field of sustainability one segment stands out as the infamous impossible-audience.

These are the ‘I don’t care’ people.

I don’t want to get slapped with the prejudice hammer, but this audience also often consists of males working in construction, carpentry, and similar jobs.

Environmental Communication Recycling

 

The following is a great example of why you should never give up when you encounter a hard audience or experience a push back.

 

Boys will be..?

My brother works as the department manager in a company that produces industrial size printers.

 

It is a very male-dominated workplace, and the tone is often crude and with sexual tones. We all know workplaces like that.

 

That last time I saw my brother, he told me about his latest team meeting.

 

He runs a team of 14 men. Once a week they have a team meeting to address work-related matters.

At the last meeting, my brother had made and brought with him a little game (this is where it gets crude).

 

The Game

He pulled to pieces of paper out and said:

‘I brought a game with me. I want you to solve this puzzle. What do the signs say?’

 

He held up the first sign: ‘Puh’

Then, he dramatically said the word and got his team to join in, in a collective ‘Puuh!’

 

He held up the second sign: ‘Say’

Again, with a dramatical flair, he got his whole team on board: ‘Say!’

‘What do the signs spell out?’

‘Puhhh-saaaay’, ‘Puh-say’, ‘Pu**y!’.

(Yes, I’m bleeping the above. Hopefully, you get it. If not, ask a friend. Not a coworker, not a family member, but a friend)

 

My brother got a big laugh from around the table, and a couple of groin-related jokes.

 

‘I have one more’ he said, and pulled out two additional pieces of paper. The second round was about to start.

 

‘Onl’. He looked in anticipation and got the table to join in. ‘Ooonl’.

‘Paapr’. The crowd joined in. ‘Paapr!’

 

My bother continued ‘Onl –paapr’ ‘Only-paapr’ ‘ONLY-PAPER!’

 

He pointed to the recycling bin in the corner of the room.

‘That bin is only for paper’, he said to the perplexed crowd.

 

‘Yesterday I saw someone had put a banana peel in it. If we throw biodegradable in the paper bin, and that goes to the treatment facility, we might end up contaminating a ton of paper because it rots and spreads bacteria. Then the paper can’t be recycled and has to be burned. Waste of money, waste of resources. So can we now agree that Onl Paapr goes in the bin?’

 

He had everyone’s attention. They nodded and verbally confirmed. The bin was for paper only.

 

 

Just to recap, that’s 14 men, who just laughed at a pu**y joke, now agreeing that it’s important to recycle. When was the last time you heard about something like that?

Recycle paper

 

Why it worked — Environmental Communication at its best

 

My brother’s a smart cookie and there’s a reason why he’s head of his department at such a young age. He’s also been forced to listen to my ramblings about recycling and psychology for, well, a long time.

He knows that telling his men off, and mentally hitting them in the head with something as uninteresting to them as recycling, isn’t going to work.

Furthermore, he knows he needs their attention, and that laughter is a much better tool than fear, and being told off.

 

He broke their mental barrier to recycling by inserting it right after a locker-room joke.

 

The first joke was a setup, introducing them to a game where the reward would be a dirty word. By doing that, he had them all on the edge of their seats, trying to spot the dirty word in the second round. What would it be this time? Even dirtier?

 

They were open to taking in new information. They were engaged, trying to be the first to figure out the next word.

And bam! Information about recycling.

 

You might be wondering why it’s even a big deal getting this segment onboard the recycling train. Because daily environmental actions, like recycling, open up a door for a deeper conversation about sustainability. It’s your entry point to substantial change.

 

The takeaway — you can make it sexy!

 

No target group is impossible to reach. I repeat:

No target group is impossible to reach!

 

You just have to know who you’re dealing with, and be willing to work on their terms, be it technical reports and pu**y jokes.

 

Set up a situation where your audience is open to taking in new information.

 

In conclusion:

Recycling, high-five bro

Want more dirty, I mean fun advice on pro-environmental behavior? Add me on LinkedIn or go to Somethinggreen.org to get your smile on.

 

Advanced waste – why the Frack is recycling so hard?

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Why are there so many bins to choose from? Why don’t they just make recycling easier? This post is about why how our advanced waste makes reeks of complexity, and what you can do to make your daily recycling habits easier. 

 

Have you ever found yourself staring at a sea of different waste bins, trying to figure out what goes where? Or have you ever had a heated argument with a friend or relative about how to recycle? If yes, then you’re just like the rest of us and it begs the question, why is recycling so hard?

Recycling is a big industry by now and few will argue that it isn’t an important thing to do. This is not a post about how, or why to recycle your waste, but about why there are so many rules and so many bins.

In the tiny country of Denmark, there are a least 100 different schemes. This can result in a lot of confusion if you move from one city to another because you have to learn the rules of recycling all over again. It also means that you could end up in a heated debate with your ant Irma about which bin to put your newspaper in.

Why do different cities have different recycling bins?

Advanced Waste Complexity Recycling

If you travel, you might have noticed different waste bins, with different shapes and different rules.

Maybe you’ve entered countries and thought;

Hot damn, they recycle a lot of stuff here! Or the opposite, they don’t recycle at all. What is wrong with these people, have they no shame?

The answer to why there are differences in what cities recycle is partly money and logistics. It takes money to transport and sort waste. But you also need to have facilities which are able to treat the waste. Not all cities have equal access to waste treatment, hence they develop different schemes to match the local circumstances and financial situation.

 

But that still leaves us with the more important question.

Why is recycling so hard? 

Rule are rules, right? Why can’t each city just make easy rules to follow? The answer may seem counterintuitive:

Progress! 

We have made astounding advances in technology. The world is full of magnificent things, that just one generation ago would have bedazzled the world. Even my coffee maker seems to require me to have an MIT degree to operate it.

Look around you, look at all the amazing things you have. You are reading this on a laptop, iPhone, tablet, or e-reader. Most of your kitchen appliances are a mix of metals, plastic, rubber, electronics and maybe even glass. Even your clothes consist of a myriad of different products. Fabric, zippers, beads, even el-wire.

 

 

We live in an amazing, awe inspiring and highly advanced world, and because of that we produce advanced trash

 

We have highly sophisticated waste. You can’t just toss it. Something as simple as a container for moisturizers may have a glass bottom and a plastic top. Should you sort it as glass or plastic? Or should you separate the two pieces? Should you rinse out the moisturizers or is that ok to leave in?

What about electric toys? Plastic or e-waste? Metal, maybe?

 

All these questions are a natural byproduct of our advanced world.

 

Being a waste geek, I often get asked questions about waste and how to sort it.

Recently I was sent this picture with the following question:

 

The After Eight conundrum – Picture by Stefan Anker Straasø

‘I can’t seem to figure out if some types of waste are paper or plastic. Like this After Eight wrapper. Paper or plastic?

And what about that little thingy that closes bread bags? It contains both metal AND plastic, so where should I dispose of it?’

 

 

It’s a darn good question, and I personally never heard it before.

The after Eight wrapper is likely a paper with some form of a coating, making it near impossible to recycle. Furthermore, the way the Danish recycling system works in most part of the country is, if your waste has touched food you can’t recycle it – this will likely change in the future as demand for resources rises.

The little bread twisters are devils and cause frustrations for many recycling superheroes. If you don’t use them directly to lock other bags then sort them as metal, as the plastic will be melted off in the recycling process.

 

Our waste and recycling system is just a logical byproduct of the way we live our lives in this high-tech world.

 

The above are both great examples of how the tiniest things in our everyday lives, are complex beyond reason. Why should I have to think about this when I just want to recycle and do the right thing?

It’s not that the people planning your local recycling schemes can’t do their job, or that big corporations are deliberately destroying the planet. It is just the unfortunate consequence of making everything around us more and more complex.

But, I can’t change that. Can I?

The world is insanely advanced, and every time I buy something I get about 10 different materials and I have no clue how to separate them – what do I do?

Let’s be honest, one person doesn’t change the world. But one person can definitely move it in the right direction. Want to be that person? It’s surprisingly easy. If you’re new to this, start with the easiest step. If you’re already a pro, move on to the more experienced step.

Small step

Stop buying plastic bags. Yes, we are starting at baby steps here.

It’s so easy to carry an extra shopping bag on you, that you have absolutely no excuse for not doing this. And compact shopping bags come in all kinds of cool designs now, so you can look good while lowering your ecological footprint.

You can also simply fold an old shopping bag, and keep it in your purse. Here is a video (and a link here).

(See how easy it is. I do this with my bags at home)

Why bother?

According to the world watch institute, the world has a global consumption of 4 to 5 trillion plastic bags—“including large trash bags, thick shopping bags, and thin grocery bags.

Roughly 80 percent of those bags were used in North America and Western Europe. Every year, Americans reportedly throw away 100 billion plastic grocery bags, which can clog drains, crowd landfills, and leave an unsightly blot on the landscape.”

 

You might think that your bag can’t possibly make a difference. Well, worst-case scenario, no it doesn’t’ and you save money and plastic for no other reason. Many countries pay for the bags, so there is money to be saved.

In a better case scenario, other people will see you whipping out your smart little bag, and think: ‘Wow, that’s really clever. I should start doing that.’ They will start doing the same and will introduce other strangers to the concept. And so it ripples.

Medium step

Buy products with only one material or with a take-back/lifetime warranty
Examples include:

  • Clothes made from only cotton/wool/silk
  • Bags or shoes made from just one material
  • Doc Marten shoes (Lifetime warranty)
  • Furniture made from only one material (Go here for more sustainable furniture)
  • An entire webshop which only features lifetime warranties

 

If you feel ready to step things up, here is a list of 37 things to do, to reduce your waste

Big step

Don’t throw stuff out.

This might seem like a really small step, but it makes a large impact. For example, if you want a new dining room table maybe consider shining up your existing table before spending money on a new one.

Remember that there is joy and pride in taking care of your belongings, of learning skills that enable you to polish a table, or sew on a new zipper.

I want to clarify that I do not endorse hoarding! There is a huge difference between buying a lot of stuff and not getting rid of it, and buying only stuff you really like or need and making sure you can keep it for decades.

There you have it, a few easy steps to get you started in regards to dealing with the advanced waste in your life.

…

I’ll end this post with a personal anecdote. I am fortunate to still have two grandmothers. They have taught me many things growing up, both in terms of what to do, and what not to do.

They are both children of the war and have both lived in times of scarcity. One of them is a hoarder. Not the horrible kind you see on TV, but she buys thing she finds on sale. She doesn’t need it. She doesn’t even really want it, but she buys it.

The other grandmother seldom buys anything. Her kitchen has not been remodeled since the late 50’s. She has told me that sometimes she thinks about remodeling it, but then again, she likes it the way it is and doesn’t really need a new kitchen.

Because her and my grandfather always make purchases which are well thought out, and out of necessity instead of desire, they were able to own recreational things such as a boat, a summer house, and an auto camper. This on the salary of one working-class adult.

My very responsible grandparents, on their wedding day, more than 60 years ago.

My grandmother was a stay-at-home mom, and they made do with my grandfather’s salary. Of course this was much easier to do in the 60’s than it is today, but still.

Because they never wasted money on things they didn’t need or didn’t really want, they can now afford to stay in the house they have lived in since the 1950’s. A house they love and cherish.

Many of their peers have resorted to selling their houses and moving into a smaller apartment because they could not pay the mortgage out of their retirement plan – but not these kids. Now, in their 80’s, they take care of their house, and enjoy the freedom and space it gives them.

 

That’s the kind of person I want to be when I retire. Someone who doesn’t spend money on things I don’t need. Someone who can stay in my home if I so desire. Someone who has had a life of adventure, of boats and auto campers and hopefully, someone who can inspire my grandkids to live a life of joy, with or without a lot of material goods.

Wanna see my spaceship? How to communicate with climate change deniers

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Ever wondered how to communicate with climate change deniers. In the previous post, I explained WHY there are still climate change deniers out there. Now I’m giving you hands-on advice, on how to break the neurological stubbornness — and yes, there’s a spaceship.

 

If you work in the environmental field, you will encounter several different personas.

One of them is the denier. He denies the logic of whatever argument you make.

 

I have worked with recycling for some years now, and the denier personae have some telling characteristics.

I’m gonna break down what that denial looks like, shed light on the actual meaning behind his words, and give you the communication tools to get your message out there. Most importantly, you won’t come off as a personal threat.

A conversation with the denier might go something like the following. For the sake of the example, I’m going to give my denier a name.

Meet Dave! He’s attending a talk I’m giving, about the importance of recycling.

 

Communicate with climate change deniers_ Dave

Our “Dave”

Me: Sorting your waste is really good for the environment.

Dave: Hah! Once the garbage trucks pick up the waste, they’re just going to put it all in the same container anyway.

Me: No, the garbage trucks don’t mix the waste. It is kept separated and brought to a processing plant.

Dave: I don’t believe you. They’re just going to mix it.

 

 

Understanding the underlying emotions

Timeout. Let’s look at the interaction. I’m giving Dave some information, and he’s refuting it.

At first glans it may look like Dave just has the wrong information, or that he’s an arrogant twat. He’s basically saying that he knows more about the waste industry than I do. I am the person working with waste after all, and Dave thinks he knows better than me.

If I didn’t know why Dave is acting like this, it might be a frustrating situation, where I leave the room feeling like I’m wasting my time on stubborn, old Dave.

But if we dissect the situation, and look at the emotional conversation of what Dave “hears”, and “says”,  here’s the actual interaction:

 

Me: You need to sort your waste because otherwise, you’re being a bad person by not caring about the environment.

Dave: I don’t want to recycle, cause I’m afraid it’s gonna take a lot of effort on my behalf and I might not be able to get it right. If I can’t sort my waste correctly, it will hurt my ego.  I like to think that I am good at most things, so sorting my recycling wrong will make me feel inadequate.

Therefore I‘m gonna use this old rumor I heard about the garbage trucks mixing the waste, to prove to myself, and to you, that the whole thing is a waste of time and energy. Then I won’t have to change my mind or my actions. More importantly, I won’t have to risk the ego punch of not knowing how to recycle.

 

 

Remember my post about some convictions being tied to a sense of self. Well, this is one of them. On a subconscious level, I am a threat to Dave, because I am “telling him,” that he’s a bad person by not recycling, and that there’s something he’s not good at.

 

There’s a chance you’re reading this right now and thinking:

‘No. Come on, Mona, people are better than that. No one feels emotionally threatened by waste.’

 

Are you sure? Having a strong sense of identity is normal and sometimes that identity is tied up on being good at something specific.

Other times, it’s tied up on being good at everything. Or maybe even being bad at everything.

 

Try taking just a few minutes to, mentally, go through your friends and family members. Do you know people who don’t like being wrong? Do you have relatives who take criticism very personally?

Did you ever go to school with someone who only saw their mistakes and weaknesses, and disregarded every good grade they got?

Humans are not rational beings, and climate change is really scary and complex. Humans aren’t good with complex issues — we like simple solutions and quick-fixes.

 

 

Get on their team — how to not be a threat

Okay, not that we’ve learned to listen to the emotional conversation, it’s time to do better.

With more than 5 years as a professional trash-talker, I’ve met a lot of “Daves”.

When I do, and am greeted with the counter-argument that they just mix the waste, I say the following, magical words:

This is the van. Pretty neat, eh?

I used to think that too!

Yes, I remember the story of when it happened in [insert whatever city you feel like], but then I went to see the trucks in action, and they have made these really cool technological advances on the trucks.

Now, the trucks have separate compartments for the different kinds of trash. It’s really cool!

 

 

All of the above is true, I had heard the rumors of the mixing and had, at one point, believed them. By telling Dave this, I put myself in the same boat as my audience, before giving him more information.

 

To recap:

I, via my choice of words, tell Dave that he and I are the same. I understand him, I am like him. I also (subconsciously) used the excuse of the truck.

If I get the feeling that it’s the fear of not messing up the recycling that’s standing in the way, I say this:

‘Dude, I’ve always been into the environment but I was so confused when I first started recycling. Like, is this plastic or glass, right? Luckily, someone showed me this trick to tell it apart. The rest was just a matter of practice. It didn’t take that long, and now I can help my grandmother recycle.’

 

You need to put yourself on the same team as your audience.
Understand them. Respect them. When you do that, you are no longer a threat.

I do the same when I speak in front of larger audiences.

The following is a little trick I use. Feel free to steal it and use for your own line of environmental work.

When talking to a larger crow of people, with many different backgrounds where I haven’t the slight clue if they are “Daves”, I say hello, I introduce myself, and then I say:

“Would you like to see my spaceship? I swear, it’s not a pickup line.”

 

Then I show them this photo.

 


“This is my spaceship, the big round one. I live on it with 6 billion of my closest friends.

On a spaceship, you have to bring all your resources. Food, water, tools, a guitar, and so on.

When you’ve used your resources, that’s it. You don’t have anymore, it’s gone. So you need to manage your resources and not overspend.

The same thing goes for our globe. We only have a finite amount of resources, and if we use them all, that’s it, it’s gone. This is why we need to reduce, reuse and recycle as much as possible.”

 

Yes, the above will get different reactions depending on your audience. Some will find it childish, and even patronizing. Never the less it still breaks down a barrier between me and the receiver and creates a common frame of reference, giving me a solid based to start from.

 

I repeat:

Starting a talk by establishing a collective understanding of the subject (creating a common frame of reference) means, I build trust with my audience, and get in the same boat as them.

Throughout the talk, I’ll now be able to refer back to the spaceship, and why it’s important that we manage our resources.

 

 

Summing up — how to deal with deniers

1. You’re not perfect either. First of all remember, that you too have been a stubborn mule at some point. I sure know I have (Sorry Jens, you were right about the equator thing).

Remembering that we’re all humans and that we all have areas where we’ve stubborn or feel vulnerable, will make it much easier talking to people, who are currently neurologically tied to their conviction.

2. Don’t be the Hulk. Remember, that when you are in a debate with a denier, you are emotionally threatening the receiver. You look like the Hulk, ready the smash them with your beliefs. To put it in another way; your facts and evidence, are emotionally hurtful.

It’s important for me to stress that this doesn’t mean you should discard evidence and facts, for the sake of making the other person feel emotionally at ease. But if you are an emotional threat, your listener will treat you like that and will either fight or flight. I’m sure you’ve experienced both before.

3. Use your common denominator. Find common ground, something you can agree on, and use that as an entrance to start a respectful conversation about the subject. When you peel away all the convictions, the cultural differences, and our social bubbles, we all really want the same thing — to be happy. Does the change you want to make, tie into the other person’s idea of happiness? Why, why not?

You don’t have to be preaching to the choir to find common ground with your audience — just respect them, and be curious.

 

I know the above is hard work, and the world we live in is making it harder. The social media bubbles only allow us to see what people with similar opinions think. At the same time, the fast pace of the internet is deteriorating our ability to learn complicated subjects and keep a healthy critical mind. (If you want to know more about this subject, I highly recommend reading The Shallows.)

 

Okay, that’s it for now. Now go and test it out in your field. I would LOVE to hear how you’ve used it, and if it helped! So leave a comment or shoot me an e-mail.

If you need help communicating your green message to your audience, get in touch! We do web copy, e-mails, social media campaigns, and much more.

 

 

Social Media and behavioral change – Saving time, money, and cutting the bullS***

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In this post, you’ll get hands-on examples of how to use social media for quick and dirty behavioral change campaigns. One of them took me 10 minutes to make and saved my workplace 2-4 weeks of work, and thousands of dollars. 

 

In my day job, I convert recycling advice and environmental information into information that makes sense, and more importantly, that you can act on.

If I make you wiser, that’s good, but I’m still only halfway there. For me to succeed, I need to give you the information you need, and the tools to act on it, while giving you that little push you need to change your actions.

 

An important thing to note here is, I don’t make people do things they don’t want to do. Most people want to be more environmentally friendly, they just need the means to do it. That’s where I come in.

 

In the olden days of communication, you would just give your recipient a lot of information, but as I’m sure we all know, information isn’t enough.

Social Media Behavioral Change Healthy eating

 

We all know smoking is bad, and exercise and a healthy diet is good, but somehow we’re not all riped non-smokers.

 

I won’t get into why behavioral change is more important than information. You can read my posts about it here and find additional resources here. Just remember that your words matter when you’re doing SoMe.

 

So how can social media, or SoMe as the kids call it, initiate a changed behavior?

 

Social media, when done right, can enforce a sense of purpose, of belonging, and an urgent need to act. These are all emotions strongly tied up to behavioral change.

But instead of giving you a lot of information about how to do it, I’ll show you.

The following are two examples of quick and dirty facebook updates I did, and an explanation as to why they worked.

 

1) The pink April Fools

This spring, we were lucky enough to get our hands on this beautiful pink waste bin. Just look how happy I am. It’s basically a pink version of the same gray bins we are distributing to the entire municipality.

 

I wanted to make a big event with it on April 1st, but the team, myself included, was swamped with work. Furthermore, April 1st was on a Saturday this year, making it even more difficult to pull of a happening.

 

Enter the magic of the internet!

I did some horrible photoshopping, got creative with the text and voila! This is the Facebook post I made:

 

‘YOUR NEW BIN IS PINK!

Last Thursday, the municipality approved the new design plan for the waste department.

 

After a short budget negotiation, it was decided that the entire municipality will get a trash bin in hot pink.

 

The new bins will put recycling on the agenda and put this municipality on the map as a first-mover when it comes to environmental action.

 

If you’ve already received a grey bin, it will be swapped with a pink bin during the summer of 2017.

 

You can read more about the new design guide and the color pink here: 

—

So yes, I am obviously not a creative genius. I spent 30 min making this post and then posted it on Facebook. The link takes you to a page of the top 3 questions about the new recycling scheme — a page we had difficulties directing traffic to.

I boosted the Facebook post with the equivalent of 22 US dollars.

 

The results? It had a reach of more than 14,000 people, got 400 reactions, 60 comments, 24 shares, and 1328 clicks on the link. This also made it our most visited page, as we were averaging around 500 clicks per week on ‘hot topics’, and 10 clicks per week on ‘bottomfeeder’ pages. This is by far the most clicks we’ve had on a site regarding the new recycling scheme. In a municipality of 90,000 people, getting this response to waste is pretty darn good.

 

Why it worked

This was an openly bad joke. It was not trying to be anything special. It was not trying to educate. It tabbed into a tradition, loved and hated by the Danish public – the horribly obvious April fools pranks.

It took a boring trashcan, and gave it some pesaz!
In other words, the message I am sending is, don’t worry, you won’t get a big pink waste bin. You will still get a waste bin, but in a less intrusive color – and no, we’re not gonna lecture you.


What’s the takeaway?

Tab into what already exists. Christmas, traditions, old jokes. I once accidentally planned a recycling event on Valentine’s day! So, when I promoted it, I added a bunch of hearts and romance, and made the headline: WE LOVE TRASH! It was a close save, but it worked.

Maybe April fools isn’t your thing. That’s cool. Here is another example of SoMe working its magic.

 

2) Cardboard or carton? The money saver

 

I work with waste management and getting people to recycle more. That also means explaining the rules of recycling.
In our recycling scheme, you can put your carton with your paper, but the cardboard has to be recycled in a separate bin.

 

This is confusing and we’ve gotten a lot of questions about how to tell the difference between carton and cardboard. The long answer has to do with the wood fibers in the two materials, but it tends to make the listener even more confused.

 

Instead of a wall of text, I tore off some cardboard from the office supply room and stole the carton roll inside a toilet paper roll. I grabbed my phone and went to work. 10 minutes later, with the aid of an Instagram filter and a layout app, I had this picture.

 

I shared it with a text explaining the difference in this way:

‘Are you down with carton?

We’ve received some questions about the new recycling scheme. One of them is, what’s the difference between cardboard and carton?

Well, cardboard and carton are tricky areas, but this is our rule of thumb:

Cardboard usually comes in big quantities, like furniture packaging. When you tear it, you can see a middle layer inside the cardboard, which is wavy.

Carton, on the other hand, is “just” thick paper. When you tear it, it still looks like thick paper.

From may 1st, carton can go in your paper bin. Cardboard should be taken to the recycling station.

Share this information with your neighbors 🙂

Thank you for recycling!’

—

The results blew me away!

I didn’t even boost this update, meaning I spend no money on it, but it got 26 shares, 116 reactions, 857 clicks, and had a range of 6774 people. Again, in a municipality of 90,000, that’s a big deal considering the photo is basically a picture of trash. Even the mayor shared it!

 

So for 10 minutes of work, and no money at all, I did what a communication campaign would have done in weeks or months of planning, and thousands of dollars worth of graphics, printing, and distribution. Let’s just recap:

 

I saved my workplace weeks of work, and thousands of dollars, in 10 minutes

This is the power of social media

 

Why it worked
It visually explained the difference between the two materials, making it easy for the citizen to test his or her waste. It eliminated a lot of energy and frustration that would have been spent contemplating the difference.

It took away the am-I-doing-it-right doubt that many people face when sorting their waste. It gave them a tool for solving this issue in years to come and thanked them for making an effort, creating a desire to continue recycling.

 

What’s the takeaway?

If you’re a good communicator, and you know the underlying motives and frustrations of your audience, you can work around the old ways of designing behavioral change campaigns.

If you can deliver your message in a to-the-point fashion, you can get away with taking photos of your waste, and just adding an Instagram filter.

 

Summing-up

 

Social media is an easy, cheap, and fast way of narrowing the gap between you and your target audience. It’s a platform where you can get away with fast updates, camera phones, and cheap editing apps.


If, on the other hand, you want to make a super high-end folder, your audience will not tolerate sloppy graphics, faulty grammar, or bad jokes. But it works for Social Media.

 

SoMe is a place to meet your equal

 

This is especially important if you work in government. You are usually the authority, telling the citizen what to do and how to comply with the rules. This automatically creates a gap between you and a (skewed?) power balance.

On social media, it’s ok to make bad jokes, with horribly photoshopped pictures. If you are fun and can look your audience in the eyes, that’s what matters.

Don’t be afraid to be human, and don’t be afraid of snarky comments on Facebook. It’s a part of how the platform works, and the rest of your audience knows that the trolls are just trolling.

 

So go get your share on, and make the difference you need to make 😉

 

Just the tip – How recycling and other low impact actions open big doors for important change

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A few posts ago, I wrote about how I sometimes felt like a whore because of my work, but it seems only fair to share the good stories as well.

 

Today my body shivered with excitement, my mind raced, and my heart was pounding. I was getting that feeling that you get when you do something worth wild. That feeling that makes you want to scream, yes!

 

What caused this excitement? Hearing people talk about the plastic wrapping on a cucumber. Now, I know what you’re thinking and the answer is no, you dirty minded person, you.

 

The background story – why plastic wrapping on a cucumber is very exciting

I work with waste management, and it’s my job to get about 90.000 people to recycle their waste. Talk about pressure. As part of this job, my team and I have just done a test with 250 households, to try out the new recycling scheme we’re implementing for those 90.000 people in the time span of the next two years.

 

We did this to make the transition for the entire municipality as smooth as possible for everyone involved. It’s a big process and a lot of things can go wrong, so we wanted to prepare as much as possible before the actual BIG implementation of the new scheme.

 

Now the six-month-long test has been completed, and the past two nights have been spent on meetings with the involved citizens, gathering the final information, and talking about what will be happening over the next few years.

 

So imagine this: 250 households have been sorting their waste in a matter very different from what they are used to, and from what the rest of the municipality is doing. They’ve been doing this for six months, with only a handful of people in the municipality, to guide them through it.

 

Most of them have had to deal with the inconveniences of getting new waste bins, both inside and outside their house, as they had to sort glass, metal, paper, bio/green, and other. Metal and Bio are two completely new fractions of waste, and the citizens in the test have never done this before.

 

Hence these meetings, held in the late hours of busy people, where not only a place for feedback and questions about recycling but also served as a place to vent emotions. And there was a lot of venting. But there was also something profoundly beautiful.

 

No, recycling won’t save the planet, but it will get you thinking about it

 

The people at the meeting have now been sorting their waste for half a year. They have done a decent job a recycling, the short timespan taken into account. But the actual change is not in their litter bins – it’s in their minds.

 

At both meetings I overheard people debating, how much packaging came with their groceries, how much waste they produced in their everyday life, and how many recourses they used.

 

“Why is there even plastic wrapping around a cucumber? I mean, do we really need all that plastic?”

 

This is what makes me tick. It’s not about the recycling, it’s not about turning off the tab, or switching off the light bulb, cause in the big picture, that’s really not a lot of change. But if you do it right, these non-essential, non-effectful environmental actions open the door for a change in mindset.

 

If you do it with intent, you can start a much more important change, than just a change in their trash bin.

You can make the change from unaware to aware, and ready to take action.

 

Plant the seed and be ready to water it

If you plan for this you can have an alternative action ready at the right moment.

In the case of the added awareness about packaging and unnecessary waste, be ready to offer kind and helpful advice on how to cut down on packaging in general for instance by shopping at farmers markets and using reusable grocery bags. Or ask the person more about how much of their waste they think is possible to eliminate and how, as this will get them thinking about alternative actions within their own frame of reference and comfort.

If you plan for these moments of added awareness, you can have valuable tools ready for your audience, and help them make that change they so deeply want to make, but don’t yet know how to.

 

You don’t need to force your way through mindsets, you can start with, well… Just the tip.

Rotation is the new recycling

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Look out recycling, there’s a new kid in town. One that’s more energy efficient, cheaper, and consumption lowering. Furthermore, if you live in a big city, chances are you can save a lot of money and time because of it.

 

In short, rotating your belongings means selling or gifting them. In recycling, you often downgrade the quality of the materials your working with, due to the treatment process, whereas you preserve the item exactly as it is when you rotate it.

For instance, when you recycle a plastic bottle, it is turned into another plastic product, but with a lower quality of plastic. If you rotate (sell or gift) a plastic box, it’s still going to be used as a plastic box, with the same quality of plastic.

The past 5 years have seen a widespread increase in sharing services. AirBNB, Über, and even Craigslist are among the many internet based platforms you can use to pay for services in a peer to peer regime.

You can sublet your apartment without the hassle of knowing someone, who knows someone. You can sign subscription on dresses, enabling you to wear a new stunning dress at every party. You can even have 2nd hand baby clothing mailed directly to you, washed and cleaned, in a leasing service.

The sharing economy is rising in every fiend of commerce

There are a growing number of services and facebook groups that offer 1:1 second hand sale, swap, or give away. You simple upload a picture of what ever you are selling or giving away, and then people respond, and come pick it up.Sharing economy

No more flea markets, no more trips to the recycling center. Someone else is picking up the tings you no longer need.

If you’re at the other end of the table, and are in need of one particular thing, then you can use these services to find people who just happen to be giving it away for free. The only thing you need to do is pick it up.

If you’ve ever moved to a new city, or a new country, you know how you often start your new life going: ‘Fuck, I need this thing!’ And then you need to spend a lot of time, and/or money getting it. Nowadays, all you need is an internet connection and some patience. If you aren’t extremely picky, you’re bound to find what you’re looking for, at a reasonable price, or free.

Why is it a good thing?

 

Environmentally, rotation is godsend. Whenever you help a product escape the gloomy faith of the trashcan, you are doing the environment a solid.

Table_rotation_monajensen

Take a table for instance. To make the table, you need wood.

Seeing as the wood may not have been grown under sustainable conditions, there’s a good chance of soil erosion and loss in biodiversity, being some of the costs of growing the tree that produced that wood.

 

The trees are cut down and transported using diesel driven machinery. Not good for the environment. Then shipping. Then maybe painting or the use of other chemicals to process the material.

Then packaging, usually cardboard, or bubble wrap. The manufacturing of both of these materials use a good dosage of chemicals and water.

Transportation_monajensenThen more shipment to stores and showrooms.

And then you buy it. You also need to take it home. More transportation.

If you then decide to discard you table, and not rotate or recycle it, it goes to either land field, adding to the production of atmospheric methane gas, or it get’s incinerated. The ladder is more environmentally friendly, as most modern incineration plants have quite good combustion and air filters, and use the excess heat for district heating.

Do the environment a solid – rotate your stuff

If you instead of discarding decide to sell, or gift that table, you are eliminating all the formerly mentioned steps and pollutants, with the small exception of the transportation between you and the receiver of the table.

 

Isn’t it bad for the economy?

money_monajensen

This is a valid question, and has often been the main point when arguing against recycling and peer to peer sales. Isn’t it bad for the economy if I stop buying tables? Not necessarily.

By not spending you money on furniture, or expensive hotels, you are freeing your money to be spent in other ways. You will now maybe buy one item of quality clothing, instead of 3 easily discarded items. Or you invest that money in investment pools, stocks, or bonds.

You could put that money into a college fund for you, or your children, now investing in both the educational system, and you country as a whole in the way, that you are adding to the amount of well educated citizens who, by the way, also make more money.

In short, the money saved by using these services does not end up in a mattress. They still end up in the economic system, but have usually been used to enhance the quality of your life.

A counter argument is often; well, if I don’t buy cheap clothing produced by child labor in India, the Children of Indian won’t have a job, ergo their quality of life will decrease. Though there is some legitimacy to this point, feeding the system of child labor through cheap clothing is treating the symptom, not the cause.

The argument is a mental loophole, used to justify your current purchasing habits. If it where to be true, you would not need to change your habits. This makes your brain happy, because habit changing is hard.

If you really want to do something to support children in 3rd world countries, there are plenty of programs you can donate money to. Or you can use your saved money to go to law school and become a human rights lawyer.

Getting back on track: Spend your money on happiness

Rotation, swapping, and battering are no longer reserved for students or low income families. It is, slowly but effectively, becoming a common practice.

 

Happy-life_sharing_economy_monajensenI highly encourage you to embrace it. And then spend the money you save on enhacing the quality of life for you, or your loved once.

Live out dreams, go travel, or just buy that really high quality food that you love so much, but never buy.

 

Rotate your stuff, do the environment a solid, and enhance the quality of life.

 

End note: A big thanks to Majken, who was the source of inspiration for this post!