Recycling Motivations

It’s a simple fact that most people will ask “what’s in it for me” when they are asked to help out the environment. With this in mind the city of Beijing has for the past two years been encouraging people to recycle through the promise of personal gain - city commuters there can now pay for their subway ride by recycling a plastic bottle. Thirty-four “reverse” vending machines have been installed in subway stations around Beijing so that when commuters insert an empty plastic bottle a sensor scans it, values the plastic at anywhere from five to fifteen cents, and then the machine ejects a public transportation credit voucher or extra mobile phone minutes, if users have entered their phone numbers. The majority of these machines have been placed in high traffic areas, and city officials have said that more than 15,000 plastic bottles are being recycled on a yearly basis within the city by the use of these machines. Such a “free rewards” system for recycling seems to be catching on with other major cities around the globe that are installing “reverse” vending machines that offer similar rewards, such as bus passes, food truck vouchers and even tickets to city events. It would be refreshing to have people want to recycle merely for the sake of the planet. But then that really is unrealistic.?