Show Products Made of Recycled Items

Although recycling opportunities abound, only about 26% of waste in the U.S. and 13% of waste globally is recycled. Yet, more than half of landfill material could have been recycled. Further, recycling rates have plateaued.
     Researchers at Pennsylvania State University and Boston College cite these statistics in introducing a method they developed to increase the percentages: Show people ads which demonstrate how recycled items are transformed into new items. The method works regardless of whether the transformed item is similar to the recycled item (material from recycled soda cans being used to produce new soda cans) or quite different (material from recycled soda cans being used to produce bicycle frames). Considering the potential of trash inspires people to engage in this socially responsible behavior.
     The salience can also be achieved with ads stating that a marketer’s products are made from recycled materials. However, the researchers note a downside to this method: People tend to consider items which incorporate recycled materials to be inferior to parallel items which use only new materials. This is a variant of the contamination concerns experienced in other areas of consumer behavior.
     The transformation ad effect is itself a variant of consumption vision advantages. Consumer researchers use the term “consumption vision” to describe a shopper’s mental image which is vivid and specific enough to let a shopper vicariously experience the benefits they would personally enjoy when using a product or service. Consumption visions generally increase purchase likelihood.
     Consumption vision of transformed waste can be particularly useful in heading off a surprisingly common reason people don’t recycle: They subconsciously believe that scraps of material are less likely to be worthwhile. In studies at Boston University and University of Alberta, participants were asked to evaluate a pair of scissors. Some were instructed to cut one or two sheets of paper as part of the evaluation. The others were instructed to conduct the evaluation without cutting the paper. Afterwards, each participant was told to discard the paper as they left. By the door were two identical bins, one for trash and one for recycling.
     The people recycled whole sheets of paper much more often than the pieces which had been cut. An ad showing transformation to a dissimilar product, such as a soda can to a bicycle frame, implies that the recycled item will need to be reduced to scraps before reuse, so even scraps are worth saving.

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