People don’t recycle things that look like trash

Is that recycling or trash?

Flickr user Traci Gardner (tengrrl)

Given a world with finite resources, some level of recycling is essential. But, even for resources that aren't especially limited—like paper—recycling can save energy and avoid the environmental disruption that comes from harvesting trees. Despite all the benefits of recycling, however, many of us do it only erratically.

A new study published in the Journal of Consumer Research attempts to explain why our recycling habit isn't as ingrained as we might like it to be. In it, two researchers (Remi Trudel and Jennifer Argo) show that our sense of an object's utility, as well as our penchant for categorizing something as trash, both feed in to whether people are likely to try to recycle it.

The research project started with the team rooting through the rubbish and recycling bins in one of their university's office buildings. During their after-hours trips through the trash, they noticed a rather distinctive pattern: sheets of paper that were close to the standard 11.5 x 8 inch size (this is the US, no A4 paper here) were more likely to be recycled, while smaller sheets tended to be thrown into the trash. This trend held even when the researchers adjusted for the total volume of paper in the different size categories.