2. Overview
• Study examined the effects of municipal promotion and
education (P&E) investments on the recycling rates of
recyclables found in Ontario's Blue Box Program
• Do P&E investments lead to increased recycling rates?
• Do different levels of P&E investment (i.e. more dollars
invested) yield different results in terms of recycling
performance?
• How does locality affect promotion and education
efficacy?
3. Methods
Data obtained from WDO Data Call (10 years, 223 municipalities)
Regression performed that examined how recycling rates (RR)were
influenced by :
PE = Municipal promotion and education expenditures (per household) ($)
PAYT = 1 if municipality implements pay as you throw scheme (0 otherwise)
CURB = Percentage of households with access to curbside recycling collection (%)
INC = Median income Per Capita ($)
AGE = Median Age
EDUC = Percentage of Population with College education or higher (%)
DEN = Population Density per square kilometer
4. Results
• No link between P&E investments and municipal
recycling rates
• No link between levels of P&E investments and
municipal recycling rates
• Locality (where municipalities are located) have no affect
on the effectiveness of P&E investments
5. Conclusions
• It’s not that P&E isn’t effective, it’s that municipalities
need to be prudent about what types of P&E are most
effective, and when.
• Little need to further stress the importance of recycling –
message already resonates with Ontarians
• P&E messaging needs to be updated to reflect specific
situations (multi res and public spaces) and key issues
(changing demography)
6. Conclusions
• It’s not that P&E isn’t effective, it’s that municipalities
need to be prudent about what types of P&E are most
effective, and when.
• Little need to further stress the importance of recycling –
message already resonates with Ontarians
• P&E messaging needs to be updated to reflect specific
situations (multi res and public spaces) and key issues
(changing demography)
