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In the modern workplace, sustainability has become a priority, with companies striving to reduce waste and improve their environmental impact. One of the most effective strategies to increase recycling participation and reduce waste is through gamification. By adding game-like elements to everyday tasks, employees are more motivated, engaged, and likely to change their behaviors. But how accurate is this theory? In this blog, we'll explore how gamification can boost overall recycling program engagement at work.
A common challenge many businesses face is low engagement with their recycling programs. Employees may be unsure of what to recycle or simply forget to participate. Gamifying the recycling process can make it fun and rewarding, encouraging more people to get involved. In Scrapp’s early days, we started out as a gamified mobile app:
- Scan the barcode of a product
- Find out how to recycle it
- Get points for every time you recycled right
- Spend points in our in-app sustainable marketplace for products or services
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The software enabled individuals to receive something in return for their positive environmental behavior. Folks could exchange their in-app points for anything multitude things, including; Ocean Bottle (reusable water bottles), Pela (eco phone cases), Wild (all-natural deodorant) and more. As a case study, we also provided the option for individuals to donate the points to charity. Surprisingly, 96% of the points on the platform were donated to charity.
96% of our users donated their points to charity
This got us thinking - maybe we have the motivation to recycle backwards? What if giving people rewards wasn’t the answer, and instead, it was to just make sure the act of doing good a given individual was making, was actually doing good. This was backed by further research we found, when looking into the research papers of people to donate blood. Blood donations dropped by 25% when a financial incentive was offered in exchange for the donation. It was discovered the moment a financial value was attached to an act of ‘doing good’, and contributing to something bigger than oneself, that the act was 'tarnished' and no longer serving an altruistic purpose.
Our solution? We made it the act of doing good, automatic. Every time a scan is made through Scrapp’s platform, we remove one ocean-bound bottle of plastic on the individual’s behalf. Then, we removed the in-app rewards system and simply made it as easy as possible for someone to scan a product and know how to recycle it. Convenience over gamification.
Convenience over gamification
It is important to note, that when the financial reward is large enough, then you can maintain very high recycling rates. This includes Bottle Bills (also known as Deposit Return Schemes), where each packaging type has a deposit value. In some US states and European countries where the bottle bill exists, there are return rates as high as 95%! But to emphasize - the financial reward has to be enough. From when the bottle bill was first introduced in 1971, the $0.05c deposit still exists today. If we account for inflation, it should now be almost $0.40c. As long as the financial incentive is enough, you will find high recycling rates for products. However, as most bottle bills are not a high amount, nor entirely ubiquitous, it means we have to get creative with motivating individuals to recycle.
One thing that we did learn through our research, is that perception plays a large part in consumer recycling. It is two-fold:
- Social perception - seeing others do something good and feeling socially pressured to follow the crowd
- Personal perception - what is the perceived impact of recycling “1 plastic bottle”. Does it truly make a difference or mean anything?
Interestingly, perception is a large driver in a lot of our decisions in our day-to-day lives. Whether it be our own, a friend’s or family members, the way in which perceive things forms our own reality. Which makes it a very important consideration when we look through the lens of recycling.
Gamifying recycling
While bringing a transactional reward to the act of recycling may not provide the long-term behavior change, there are other ways to leverage gamification to improve consumer recycling rates. They take a blend of the social and personal perceptions mentioned above. See below some examples:
- Leaderboards - Everyone loves a bit of competition. Bringing in a leaderboard for each department allows them to benchmark their own recycling goals against one another. This contextualizes the personally perceived impact (eg. amount being recycled) with the social perception (eg. comparison to others).
- Set Recycling Goals and Challenges - In business, everyone is familiar with KPIs, Objectives, Goals etc. Being goal-orientated is great at keeping teams aligned. One thing that usually gets overlooked is the environmental KPIs. These are something that have only become apparent in the last few years, as CSR and ESG take precedent. Bringing in recycling goals or challenges helps introduce new challenges every month or quarter to keep the excitement alive. For example, you could challenge employees to reduce their single-use plastics or recycle the most paper in a given month. Once you hit those milestones, you can celebrate with office-wide rewards or parties.
- Incentive programs - Bringing in unique ways through setting polls or donations is a great to engage folks with recycling right. Both Polls and Causes are simple ways to bring awareness to the behavior of doing good - not just the intention.
Polls allow a question to come up on the Scrapp mobile app, or separation station, to be answered by the recycler. You can bring in topical questions that are a bit of fun (eg. asking teams if they were team Barbie or Oppenheimer), that get individuals communicating around the topic of recycling. Remember; 9 out of 10 people don’t know what the circular economy means. Education is the key. Education comes through communication.
Causes allow the donation of money to a charity of the recyclers choice. Simply vote for the charity they want after they have recycled and a portion of money will be tallied for that selected charity.
- Educational insights - As mentioned before, Scrapp takes an education-first approach. 8 out of 10 people put their waste in the wrong bin. It’s not because they hate the planet, it’s because they don’t have the right information at their disposal. This makes it inconvenient. By providing relatable, digestible insights routinely, people can build an understanding into the impact they are having by recycling right. Think of it like counting calories - once you’ve done it a couple of times, you can understand roughly what a given number of calories may look like. So then you no longer need to count them, as you have a good baseline of what it looks like. Same goes for quantifying the impact of recycling through educational insights. Recycling one aluminum can is great, but what does that look like? Powering a TV for 3 hours brings it home.
- Constant awareness - Waste and recycling have been an afterthought for the longest time. It has always been cheaper to throw something away than to recycle it. But this is changing. Unfortunately, for the non-recyclers of the world, this TAKE, MAKE, DISPOSE model is going to get very expensive, very quickly. As landfill space runs out, resources become more scarce, the price will inevitably increase. Keeping people aware means recycling right stays front of mind for them going forward. Show your teams exactly where the waste is going, what it is being turned into and the impact it is having TODAY. You can do this with Scrapp’s shareable URL feature, where live data can be integrated into your display screens around your buildings, to keep the awareness up and conversations going around your zero-waste efforts. Making quiz elements can help maintain the knowledge conservation and discover your internal champions to keep the zero-waste movement going.
These are just some examples of gamifying the consumer experience that you can use in your recycling programs to increase engagement. Scrapp facilitates this through its platform, and more. Book in a demo to speak with a member of the team or email us at info@scrappzero.com with any questions. We’d love to hear from you!
How can Scrapp help?
Are you embarking on your own zero-waste journey? Our sustainability experts are here to guide you. So, if you need further guidance, personalized strategies, or more details about our digital recycling tools, don't hesitate to reach out. We're committed to helping you achieve your zero-waste goals.
