Going With the Flow

Garbage

Just about everyone agrees that one way to keep the world from wallowing in garbage is to recycle. The problem is how to get folks to comply by sorting their stuff.

A German psychologist contends that we're handling the garbage glut wrong. Instead of creating "environmentally appropriate attitudes," as environmentalists would have it, we'd do better capitalizing on the social structure of apartment buildings and the families who live there.

It certainly wasn't conviction that separated good from bad garbage sorters among residents of six Heidelberg apartment buildings, reports Stefan E. Hormuth, Ph.D. He told the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in San Francisco that close relationships with neighbors and family organization proved more important than green beliefs.

Hormuth looked at the weakest link in the recycling chain--compliance in large apartment buildings. In Germany, residents not only have to sort bottles and cans, they also have to separate compostables from other garbage. Sorting, he says, is most likely to happen when one person in a household is responsible for throwing out the garbage. The best arrangement--not good news for wives--is when the person who prepares the food is also the one who gets rid of it.

Single-person households are the least compliant garbage sorters, Hormuth found to his surprise. It overturns the conventional wisdom that younger folk are more environmentally conscious. And job pressures didn't seem to play a part in their poor performance.

Older people were actually much more conscientious in sorting out compostable garbage, probably for several reasons: They had more social contacts with and felt more responsibility toward fellow residents; and the older generation is more likely to remember less affluent times and thus are less likely to get rid of trash in a dash.

Waste, Hormuth agrees, is a terrible thing to mind. The best way to get around trash-avoidance problems is to design kitchens and containers that accommodate sorting in the heat of activity.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Cutting the Glut: It'll take contact, not just conviction, in the cities.