Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Promoting Proper Use of a Household Hazardous Waste Facility: A System Approach
EPA Grant Number: R825827Title: Promoting Proper Use of a Household Hazardous Waste Facility: A System Approach
Investigators: Werner, Carol M.
Institution: University of Utah
EPA Project Officer: Chung, Serena
Project Period: October 1, 1997 through December 31, 1998 (Extended to June 30, 2001)
Project Amount: $128,211
RFA: Decision-Making and Valuation for Environmental Policy (1997) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Environmental Justice
Objective:
The general purpose of the project was to reduce pressure on household hazardous waste (HHW) disposal facilities by reducing the amount of HHW being discarded. The research asked the questions "Why do people use toxic household products?" and "Can we teach them to be more careful in their use and disposal of these products?" Five behaviors were targeted: (1) switch to nontoxic alternative products, (2) store chemicals at proper temperatures to extend shelf life, (3) use up leftovers instead of disposing of them, (4) share unwanted leftovers with friends, and (5) take spoiled products to the HHW facility. Over a 2.5-year period, we developed a holistic program, based on the general idea that individuals' attitudes and behaviors are embedded in and informed by important reference groups. We also based the program on fundamental psychological principles relating to how people process messages, what increases acceptability of the message, what increases memory of the information, and what can be done to help people maintain new behaviors. The project is relevant to basic theory in psychology as well as HHW managers, and different presentations and articles targeted these different audiences.Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
During the first year of the grant, we focused on the development of brochures. We developed brochures to interest residents in nontoxic alternatives and to convince them to use the HHW facility. These brochures were based on two psychological theories. First was a standard persuasion strategy-coupling a moderate level of fear with clear instructions for preventing the fear-arousing outcome (home safety and protection of groundwater). Second was information about positive phenomenal aspects of the alternatives, such as the fresher fragrance. This strategy was suggested by research on behavioral self-regulation that people who emphasize such features are more likely to maintain a new behavior (Sansone and Smith, 2000). Several pilot studies and a field experiment (n = 188, representing a 60 percent response rate) demonstrated that the brochure would be an effective handout (Isaac, et al., 1999).
Also during Year 1, we tried to change residents' values about the ideal home and yard so as to reduce their need for toxic products. However, focus groups and ratings of sample brochures suggested that it would be difficult to change residents' views about these ideals. At the same time, we learned that residents were receptive to the idea that nontoxic alternatives were just as effective as toxic products. As a consequence, we made the "just as effective" message one of our major themes, and "modifying images of the ideal home and yard" a longer-term goal. A second consideration was social embeddedness-the idea that people embrace these ideal images in part because of a desire to fit into a neighborhood or other social group. It may be that hearing others endorse a new image is essential to changing one's own image. That is, if these are socially constructed and endorsed ideals, they can be replaced only by new ideals that also are socially constructed and endorsed. This consideration was an important basis for our decision to use group discussions as a setting for attitude and behavior change.
During the second year of the grant, our objective was to develop a successful education and behavior-change program. We tried a variety of strategies for getting local groups interested in our behavioral objectives. One strategy that did not work was to send materials to church groups and ask them to develop programs in conjunction with our "liaison." Liaisons contacted over 300 churches (every non-Latter Day Saints (Mormon) congregation in the County and a random sample of LDS congregations) by phone, mail, or in person, and sent or dropped off packets of materials that each group could use to educate its members. We developed a regular newsletter with nontoxic recipes and other relevant information. A handful of churches provided us with the name of a person interested in organizing their group, and only one group reported a successful leftover exchange. Therefore, we abandoned this approach as unproductive.
Two of the programs we implement during the second year were successful. These programs were more structured and more specifically designed to facilitate the five target HHW behaviors. The first successful program we tried was the Elementary School Pollution Prevention Program. It targeted pollution prevention components of Utah's elementary school curriculum (3rd, 4th, and 5th graders). We aimed to increase children's interest in science classes, but also hoped that the children would share their enthusiasm with their parents. The idea was to arouse interest in "enjoying backyard nature," a goal that is incompatible with overuse of toxic products. Six undergraduate students were trained and gave presentations about the desirability of "nature friendly backyards" to 40 elementary school classes. A nature friendly backyard provides habitat for native species of birds, insects, and other native wildlife. The undergraduates developed and distributed a 2-year calendar of fun backyard activities as a way to maintain interest after our presentation. Some of the calendar projects specifically focused on our program's five target behaviors. The calendar was deliberately a little above the students' level so that they would have to involve their parents in the activities. We had intended to do a formal program evaluation to ascertain the program's effectiveness, but we could not get adequate cooperation from the school districts. We stopped this program, but would continue it if we could conduct an evaluation that included feedback from parents about the calendar and whether their home and yard care behaviors had been changed. Based on feedback from the teachers (questionnaires with open- and closed-format items), and on the children's spontaneous reactions, we continued to refine the calendar and used it as a hand-out in our second outreach program.
Our second and most successful approach, the Adult Lewinian Groups Program, was derived from Lewin's (1952) group-based education and behavior-change program. The program targeted the five behaviors listed above (use nontoxics, store chemicals properly, use up and share leftovers, and dispose of spoiled products at the HHW facility). Key features are that the individual's attitude and behavior change are embedded in a significant reference group, and the program involves discussion of issues rather than a unidirectional presentation of information. The discussion format allows participants to learn each other's diverse opinions, and this knowledge can open participants to new information. To date, over 80 groups have participated, mostly church groups, but a few high school classes, senior centers, and service clubs (e.g., Lion's Club). Trained presenters show a video about the County's new HHW-disposal facility and lead a discussion of what group members can do to cooperate with new health department regulations regarding HHW. In addition to suggesting proper disposal, the presenters encourage group members to discuss nontoxic alternative products, ways of sharing leftovers, proper storage, and so on. We distribute several handouts as memory prompts to extend the impact of the meeting, and we provide recipes for and demonstrate homemade nontoxic products to show their effectiveness. The meetings end with free samples of a homemade product.
This group-based program assumes that there is no "silver bullet" for changing behavior. Instead, a program must address multiple aspects of a total system-including the individual, his or her social group, and the physical environment in which behavior occurs. Effective education and change efforts must do all of the following:
- Address the individual's thoughts and memory processes with persuasive and memorable messages.
- Include information about the behavior-how to be successful at it, and how to ground the behavior in its physical and behavioral setting (the natural flow of events).
- Suggest ways of making the physical environment more supportive of the new behavior.
- Target or involve the local social milieu in which the individual and behavior are embedded.
- Change the broader societal pressures and public information that informs the individual and social group.
- Education and change efforts also must be sensitive to temporal qualities, such as short- and long-term aspects of change. New behaviors need to be supported by the physical and social environments, and long-term support needs to be "institutionalized" so that it becomes an integral part of other group activities.
Evaluation of the Program: Questionnaires. To evaluate the impact of these discussions, we distributed two questionnaires to each program organizer (the contact person who had invited us to present to the group). The first was for the organizer, and the second was for "a member of the group who had missed our presentation." Our aim was to evaluate the impact of the program by comparing the attitudes and behaviors of people who had seen the presentation with a "matched control group" people similar to the organizers in socioeconomic status, religion, and education level, but who had by choice or chance missed the presentation. We used two techniques for increasing honest responses: we provided complete anonymity so they would feel comfortable being honest, and we asked for their help in improving the program-only honest answers would help us improve the program.
We received useable responses from 49 organizers. These organizers reported a very positive reaction to the presentation, with high marks for the nontoxic ideas, presenters, and handouts. The overall favorability rating was 9.2 on an 11-point scale (where 11= extremely favorable). They also reported that they planned to use more nontoxic alternatives (mean score across three 11-point items is 8.4). With respect to sharing leftovers with friends, 16 (36 percent), of the organizers reported they had begun sharing, and strongly intended to continue sharing.
Since our presentation, 39 percent of the organizers had taken something to the HHW disposal facility (including 3 who noted they were sharing or using up leftovers as per our presentation). If this percentage of "proper disposers" generalized to everyone who saw our presentation, we potentially changed the behaviors of almost 500 households (39 percent of the estimated 1275 households not already using the facility).
How does this level of change compare to previous promotion campaigns? Five other organizers-or 10 percent of the 49 respondents-reported they had already been using the facility in the 5 years since it had opened. We could consider that 10 percent to represent a baseline, indicating what percentage of this population had known about and used the facility before our presentation. In other words, our presentation-which induced 39 percent to treat HHW properly-appears to be almost four times as successful as the publicity, announcements, and word of mouth that had been going on for the previous 5 years. Another comparison group comes from the survey conducted in Year 1 of the grant. In that sample of 170 homeowners, a similar 11 percent had disposed of leftovers at the facility (Werner and Sorod, 2001), providing further support for our group meetings. Costs for this impact are fairly modest. With an average group size of 31, and approximately $25.00 per group for the presentation (includes supplies, handouts, scheduling, and presenter), the cost for contacting each household is less than $3.00.
For comparison purposes, we asked each organizer to give an additional questionnaire to a group member who had missed our presentation. In theory, this "matched control" person should be similar to the organizer in many personal and demographic qualities, including their initial attitudes about household chemicals. A comparison of the organizer with the matched control would give some idea of the importance of seeing the presentation. As expected, those who had seen the presentation were more likely to have begun sharing leftovers, and also more likely to be practicing proper disposal at the HHW facility.
Results also indicated that organizers were significantly more favorable than the matched controls on all of the other items (e.g., using nontoxic alternatives, and the importance of reducing use of toxic chemical products). Of particular interest was a difference between the organizers and their matched control group with respect to predictions about how the group would behave. Organizers were more aware of whether their group had begun sharing leftovers and had higher expectations that the group would continue to share leftovers. Thus, the matched control group-who had not seen our presentation-had a rather dismal view of whether their friends would be interested in sharing leftovers. In contrast, organizers who had been present for the discussion and could see the enthusiasm of their friends, believed the group would share leftovers instead of discarding them. This is consistent with our view that group discussions allow people to see each other's enthusiasm for a new idea and encourages people to consider the new behavior with greater enthusiasm.
The feedback from organizers is encouraging, and differences between organizers and group members who had missed the meeting (the "matched controls") support the theory that people attend to how their friends react to new information. However, there are two issues that weaken this inference. One is the sample size (n = 44). Although the differences are statistically reliable (would occur again), a larger sample would help assure that the findings are generalizable (true of a broader population). The second problem is self-selection by the control group. Although we asked the organizer to use a random procedure for selecting a person who had missed the meeting to complete the extra questionnaire, that did not tell us whether the person had missed the meeting by choice or by accident. If the control group contained many people who were disinterested in toxics reduction but the organizers were all interested in the message, the differences between their reported opinions could be due to initial interest, not any impact of our meeting. Note that this is primarily a concern about respondents' own opinions. It is less likely to be a concern about their estimates of their group's reactions, and it is these estimates that support the idea that hearing friends embrace new ideas is a key part of individual attitude and behavior change.
Evaluation of the Program: Follow-up Interviews. A random sample from the 73 organizers was contacted several months after the presentation. They were interviewed in more depth about their group's behaviors since the presentation. The questionnaires had been completely anonymous (to increase honest responding), and we made no effort to connect this interview with the original questionnaire. All 22 interviews indicated that the organizer had been thinking about issues raised in the presentation, especially lifestyle changes and leftover sharing.
Eight (36 percent) said that their biggest lifestyle change had been trying to reduce use of toxic products and increase use of nontoxic alternatives. They said group members also were changing, and all liked the safety and the financial savings of nontoxics.
Twelve organizers (55 percent) said that their group already had begun sharing or had held an exchange in some form (note that this number is higher than had been reported in the questionnaires, suggesting groups had taken a month or so to organize their exchanges). Two people said that they or another member had been making regular announcements to the group, or had put reminders in newsletters and other mailings. Two said that their group regularly had a "sharing" table or a "give and take" table for clothing, food, etc., and they planned to dedicate one week to sharing leftover paints and chemicals (we sent instructions for safety in leftover sharing). About half the people said that their group would share leftover toxic products with friends, but that the idea of a major exchange did not appeal to them. Five people said their group would not have an exchange and attributed that to a variety of factors: "my fault-I need to get going on this" (n = 1); a lack of leadership (n = 2); personal discomfort at pushing people to reduce use of toxic products or share leftovers (n = 2); and the difficulty of organizing and managing an exchange (n = 2).
Three types of organizers emerged from the interviews. The first type was comfortable making information available-they put articles into newsletters, made announcements at meetings, talked to group members about nontoxic alternatives, and so on. They expressed no hesitation or reluctance about promoting toxics reduction, treating it as something that needed to be done. Indeed, very early in this program (before we developed the presentations), the very first leftover exchange was organized by this kind of individual. She announced the upcoming exchange three Sundays in a row-accompanied by two of her friends whom she had induced to dress up in plastic garbage bags and put on a skit. When complimented on her ingenuity, she seemed surprised, and said it had not been difficult at all.
This comfortable, direct style was completely different from the second group. This group seemed to feel very uncomfortable in any leadership role, hoped that someone else would take over, were embarrassed about nagging people (e.g., "I'm not comfortable pushing people" and "I've been trying to get people to change for years, but it's hard to talk to them"), and in general seemed to lack skills needed to organize and motivate others. They may have assumed that people would not be interested or would resent any reminders (although no negative reactions were reported). The third group was intermediate. They seemed to be very good at working with their close friends, but very uncomfortable operating at a more public level. These two latter "types" may benefit from meetings with the first "type," and we hope to organize informal meetings at which organizers could share their experiences and motivate each other to try different kinds of outreach.
Summary. Over a 2.5-year period, a program was developed for teaching citizens how to reduce generation of household hazardous waste. Group meetings were used as a context in which to discuss alternatives to toxic products, sharing of leftovers with friends, proper storage to extend shelf-life, and other ways of reducing household hazardous waste. The meetings emphasized group discussion so that group members could hear each other's opinions about the issues. This program was estimated to be approximately 4 times as successful as the County's previous efforts to teach people about the new HHW disposal facility. The program was based on a holistic model of behavior and attitude change that incorporated social-psychological principles of memory, information processing, and attitude change, environmental psychology principles of connections between behavior and the physical environment, and environmental psychology principles of the ideal images of home. Two publications explain how to develop similar programs and are written for HHW managers (Werner and Adams, 2000 and 2001); one article is written for psychologists and provides details on the theoretical rationale and program evaluation (Werner, submitted).
Journal Articles on this Report : 1 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other project views: | All 16 publications | 4 publications in selected types | All 1 journal articles |
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Type | Citation | ||
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Werner CM, Adams D. Changing homeowners' behaviors involving toxic household chemicals: a psychological, multilevel approach. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy 2001;1(1):1-32. |
R825827 (Final) |
Exit Exit |
Supplemental Keywords:
persuasion, behavior change, reference group, intrinsic motivation, household hazardous waste, RFA, Economic, Social, & Behavioral Science Research Program, Scientific Discipline, Geographic Area, Waste, State, Economics, Hazardous Waste, decision-making, Ecology and Ecosystems, Hazardous, Economics & Decision Making, Psychology, Social Science, social psychology, hazardous substance disposal, hazardous waste disposal, hazardous waste management, hazardous waste treatment, belief system, community involvement, human activities, social impact analysis, valuation, decision analysis, incentives, valuing environmental quality, Utah (UT), environmental values, preference formation, standards of value, environmental ethics, environmental policy, hazardous waste facility, psychological attitudes, source reduction, behavior change, outreach and education, hazardous waste site, benefits assessmentProgress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.