Recycle Right® advertising campaign Market Research (full report - 2014)

This report presents the findings of research to better understand how South Australian householders use their green organics, recycling and landfill bin system and to assess the impact of Zero Waste SA’s Recycle Right® campaign on bin system usage. The 2014 Recycle Right® campaign aimed to promote reduced householder contamination of the green organics and recycling streams through correct bin usage and to avoid materials going to landfill when they could be diverted to the other waste streams.

The Recycle Right® campaign has been running since 2010 and prior research to provide attitude and behaviour benchmarks and assess the campaign’s effectiveness was conducted in both 2010 and 2012. In 2013 campaign messages around food scraps and hazardous waste disposal were added to the existing green organics and recycling themes. The campaign elements tested in 2013-14 ran from July 2013 until the end of April 2014 and were delivered primarily through print media and flyers distributed through councils. 

This research aims to assess the effectiveness of the campaign. 

It does this through assessing: 

• recall of the campaign amongst South Australian householders
• improved knowledge about which bin should be used for the disposal of common contaminants (e.g. oven glass should not go in the recycling bin)
• improved process-oriented knowledge about recycling (how items should be prepared for recycling, e.g. rinse cartons and bottles before disposal)
• contamination and poor practice levels in the three bin system using an observational method.