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From Here Forward shares stories and ideas about amazing things UBC and its alumni are doing around the world. It covers people and places, truths, science, art, and accomplishments with the view that sharing better inspires better. Join hosts Carol Eugene Park and Jeevan Sangha, both UBC grads, in exploring solutions for the negative stuff out there — focussing on the good for a change, from here forward.
[00:00:00] Carol Eugene Park: Hello, friendly alumni. Welcome back to From Here Forward, A UBC Podcast Network Podcast. I'm Carol.
[00:00:06] Jeevan Sangha: And I'm Jeevan. Carol, uh, did you want to share our news?
[00:00:10] Carol Eugene Park: No, I think you should do the honors.
[00:00:12] Jeevan Sangha: Oh, okay. A few weeks ago, we found out that From Here Forward won gold in the best podcast category for the Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education's Prix d’Excellence.
[00:00:24] Thank you so much to everyone who listens to the podcast. Whether you've been here since the beginning, or you found us today.
[00:00:29] Carol Eugene Park: It goes without saying. Huge thanks to our alumni UBC team and Podium Podcast Company for making the two of us sound good and producing the stories you hear every month. I mean, it's not every day that you’re part of an award-winning podcast.
[00:00:43] Jeevan Sangha: And since we're on the theme of excellence, let's jump into introducing our guest for the month.
[00:00:47] Carol Eugene Park: Earth Day may have come and gone. But no matter what calendar month we're in, the practice of recycling is always worth talking about.
[00:00:54] Jeevan Sangha: So, we sat down with Jiaying Zhao or JZ, associate professor in the Department of Psychology and the Institute for Resources environment and Sustainability. We also sat down with Jade Radke, a PhD student in the Behavioral Sustainability Lab at UBC.
[00:01:08] Carol Eugene Park: The two teamed up to build upon Daniel Kahneman Prospect Theory, which won him the Nobel Memorial Prize in economic sciences in 2002. I mean, I'll let the experts describe this theory because I can't. But the UBC researchers applied this theory towards the bottled deposit refund systems in Vancouver.
[00:01:24] Jeevan Sangha: without giving too much away, their study focuses on different ways of motivating people to participate in environmental issues.
[00:01:30] Carol Eugene Park: So, let's dive in.
[00:01:32] Jade Radke: I am Jade Radke. I am a PhD student in the Behavioral Sustainability Lab at UBC working with JZ, and we're looking at positive ways to promote climate action.
[00:01:45] JZ: Hi, I am Jiaying Zhao, I go by JZ. I'm a faculty in, uh, psychology and sustainability at UBC.
[00:01:51] Jeevan Sangha: can you talk to me a bit about what interested both of you in exploring people's motivation to take climate action and specifically recycle?
[00:01:59] Jade Radke: We essentially built on previous Nobel Prize winning research that shows that people tend to prefer a small chance to win a large reward over getting a small, guaranteed reward.
[00:02:11] So we've known this in psychology for a long time. But we looked at the bottle deposit refund systems and saw an opportunity there to potentially improve the effectiveness of them based on this past research. Because we have such a small deposit refund of 10 cents, that doesn't seem to be motivating for a lot of people to recycle their bottles.
[00:02:33] So we thought this is a great chance to improve this based on what we know from psychology already.
[00:02:38] JZ: And for me, I'm just frustrated by the fact that most bottles produced, that's over 2 trillion beverage containers produced every year are not recycled. That's an enormous amount of waste. I want to do something better.
[00:02:50] Carol Eugene Park: Great answer. So, I want to go to your point, Jade, about the existing literature in psychology about the motivating factors. Could you just explain what that is?
[00:03:01] Jade Radke: Essentially what we were focusing on is different ways to motivate people without getting that backlash pushback from people that we so often see with environmental issues.
[00:03:13] And from the literature we know that reinforcement, so getting something pleasurable after we do something, is a great way to promote behavior without getting sort of that backlash that we do with punishment. Like taxes and shaming people into doing things is not always the best approach. So we really based a lot of this on that, that fundamental understanding that when we reward people for doing things, it not only makes 'them want to do it more, but also makes them feel better than if we were just shaming them into trying to do something.
[00:03:47] JZ: Yeah's, going back to the Nobel Prize winning work that Jade mentioned. This is actually worked done by this, by Danny Kahneman in the seventies, and Amos Tversky. Now, Kahneman was a psychology professor in the seventies and eighties at UBC. So, we had him, he actually did most of the work, this kind of work at UBC when he was faculty here.
[00:04:05] What he and, Tversky showed was, uh, prospect theory where people prefer a small chance to win a large price over a small, guaranteed reward. This is why we like to gamble a little bit, or lottery, why lotteries are so attractive to us. So that's the prospect theory is our kind of primary theoretical motivation.
[00:04:24] The second one is, positive reinforcement. So, this is Skinner's work back, going back to the fifties. This is how we train rats and other animals and dogs pigeons to do things. And we're applying the same principles of the variable ratio reinforcement schedule. Which is basically the behavior is going to be more frequent when we offer rewards every once in a while, unpredictably, as opposed to every time we give them a small reward to keep the behavior going.
[00:04:49] And the third theoretical motivation is the psychology of refund. So the bottle deposit system is essentially you pay like a small deposit, like 10 cents when you buy the beverage container and you get it back when, when you recycle it, or you bring it to the depot to recycle it. Uh, so the refund turns out.
[00:05:09] It's not perceived as refund. It's more like a gain in most people's minds. So that's also interesting because now we can use that as a reward as opposed to a recovered loss.
[00:05:19] Jeevan Sangha: Yeah, that's really interesting. I think that I view it that way too. I think I'm one of those people who forgets. My dad is very like on recycling all of our refundable bottles and it's like we spent that money already so we might as well get it back.
[00:05:34] But a lot of people, to your point, JZ, a lot of people forget that or, or don't even know in the first place.
[00:05:39] Carol Eugene Park: Did not know this. Like I knew it on my receipt. But now that you say that I'm like. Oh, that was, that.
[00:05:45] JZ: It's your money that you're getting back, but, but we, we forgot that we paid for it, so it's like a reward. It's awesome.
[00:05:53] Jeevan Sangha: Are there any other current challenges with the way recycling deposits are being managed or being perhaps marketed to the public?
[00:06:00] Jade Radke: In terms of management? I'm not in, in there, so I, I can't speak too much to that, but I think that we are doing a good job, both BC and Alberta have higher return rates for bottles than the average in Canada and Canada is higher than the average globally. So, we're doing pretty well, but it's not at that a hundred percent and we want to try and get to that a hundred percent as close as we can.
[00:06:23] JZ: Yeah, we can do better. And we talked to Return IT program in BC. We actually met with their team a couple weeks ago and I really applaud them for the work they're doing. They're really doing really amazing work to collect all the bottles back. But I think there are a couple barriers, which is maybe lack of awareness. The refund that people can give back. 10 cents is, you know, to me that's not very motivating. So, who cares? I'd rather just recycle it as opposed to bring it to the depot. So, I think those are the kind of behavioral, uh, barriers of the refund systems.
[00:06:53] Carol Eugene Park: I don't know if this is directly related, but the reward aspect of infrequency, tell me if I'm super off base here, but like the carbon tax rebate isn't that kind of infrequent.
[00:07:06] JZ: it's once a year. It is very; I would not reward somebody once a year? That is just, it takes enormous amount of will and discipline to not get anything other than one time in a year. So, yeah, exactly. of course, the more frequent the reward is, the better the impact or effect is. Uh, the amount also matters, 10 cents is obviously less rewarding than $10. So, all of these matter.
[00:07:31] Jade Radke: Yeah, A key point of the variable ratio schedule too of reinforcement is that it's unpredictable. So, you don't know when you're going to get that reward, which is what kind of drives us to keep trying because maybe this time I'll get it.
[00:07:45] Whereas the carbon rebate, I believe is. Still pretty predictable if you know that it's coming, which a lot of people don't. But it's kind of always around the same time of year. So, it also lacks similarity in, in that aspect to drive behavior because you're not having to try continuously. That's more of a, a fixed type of reward.
[00:08:05] Carol Eugene Park: So, just currently as the research findings show, is this a way that we, is this something that we can apply to other types of climate action to get people to participate in?
[00:08:16] JZ: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. We, we have a whole paper published two years ago on the exact topic of how to reinforce climate action.
[00:08:24] And this, this bottle refund is only one of the many that we talked about in the paper. Another an idea is every time you get on the bus or get on the sky train, you, you enter, it's a lottery ticket. You have a chance to win something. That's another kind of way to incentivize people to take public transit.
[00:08:41] I, I think there could be more of those rewards in Vancouver and more broadly to get people to, you know, behave or reduce carbon emissions and reduce waste without necessarily incurring additional costs to the system. So that's the idea is that lottery is not costing the refund system more. It's the same payoff, 10 cents per bottle.
[00:09:03] Jade Radke: Yeah, we did a very similar thing as well in a coffee shop actually. And we offered a chance to win a free coffee for people who are bringing their reusable mugs to the coffee shop. And we found that that increased the amount of people bringing reusable mugs compared to our other location. So, it definitely can be applied to other areas as well.
[00:09:25] Jeevan Sangha: That is really interesting. I probably would also bring my mug in if I knew I could get a free coffee. If I'm paying $8 for a latte and there's a chance that could be free.
[00:09:33] JZ: Yeah.
[00:09:33] Jeevan Sangha: Are you kidding me?
[00:09:35] JZ: This is so awesome because it's a chance every time you bring your own bottle. Do you have a chance? Typically, one in 10. So, 10% chance of getting a free coffee. Now a lot of the coffee shops already have this in place. They have something called stamp cards. Personally, I don't like stamp cards because I never remember to carry it with me. So, I think a better system is a chance a, you know, 10% chance, one in 10 to get a free coffee. Same cost as offering a stamp card. It's way more exciting.
[00:10:02] Jeevan Sangha: I was also curious about if there are any other social conditions that you found that might impact whether folks are more incentivized to return bottles or to like take climate action. Like for example, when you're we're talking about BC like are there certain regions that we know have less turnout.
[00:10:18] JZ: This is something I heard from the Return It program, which is shocking. You know, BC is at 80% as a province. But Vancouver is the worst in BC we're only at 50%. That's shocking to me. I thought Vancouver is one of the best in, in British Columbia. But no, actually people either throw away bottles or recycle bottles outside of the deposit system.
[00:10:39] So there's a lot we can do here, and we have the motivations I think people want to get money back. Who doesn't want free cash? It's just that there's, it's inconvenient or they don't know that they can get money back.
[00:10:53] Jade Radke: Inconvenience is a huge part of it. Whether depots are close by to you or not makes a huge difference in whether people are willing to recycle their bottles.
[00:11:03] So if you live in a region that has one that you would have to drive 30 minutes to, odds are you're probably not. Doing that compared to if it's just down the street. People will also be motivated by different things. So, some people might be motivated by the money, some people might be motivated by the environmental impact.
[00:11:20] So it, it's very variable. But lots of, lots of social conditions, income, things like that are, are all huge motivators for people and they affect people in different ways.
[00:11:30] Carol Eugene Park: I'm just thinking about, well, I don't want to out myself here, but I will. I learned recently. You're not supposed to throw batteries in the garbage.
[00:11:38] JZ: No. You're supposed to recycle batteries. Yes, that's right.
[00:11:41] Carol Eugene Park: I'm just thinking if we applied this, batteries are so expensive. I just feel like if I could win, you know, a pack of like 90 AA batteries, I would absolutely recycle properly. Not that I'm not going to now, but I'm just saying.
[00:11:54] JZ: Or each battery you recycle is a ticket to win something.
[00:11:57] UBC has battery recycling programs. I mean, we as a, as a campus, you know, we collect batteries, but they're not, those recycling stations are not known. I mean, I only know one place I should know more, but I know the Sears building has a battery recycling box on the ground floor. But yeah, you're right, like we could turn battery recycling into a lottery too.
[00:12:18] Carol Eugene Park: So, to add onto the reward system, happiness was something that you guys cited as being very important, which is cool. But I just immediately was like, why is happiness so important? Like, why can't we just do it cause you want to be a good person.
[00:12:32] Jade Radke: Yeah. That's a question that we get a lot. You're not alone in, in thinking that. I think that there's many reasons to consider happiness. One of them being our strategy so far has largely been to encourage people to do it just because they should be good and they should help the environment and even some, some shame in there. You're a bad person if you don't, and I think that the people we've captured with that narrative, who are motivated by that have been captured and are motivated, and so how do we get everybody else on board?
[00:13:03] I also think so much of what we've done with, with Climate Action so far has been that sort of shame-based or emphasizing things we need to sacrifice for the environment, which turns a lot of people off of doing it. People don't want to be less happy, they don't want to sacrifice things, and a lot of the literature suggests that that's not needed, that actually, engaging in pro-environmental behavior and climate action can actually increase our happiness. But people just aren't aware of that, and I think it's a great opportunity if we start to consider that and focus on that. Considering not only how we can change our behavior to help the environment but also help us as people feel happier and just be better overall. Why not do both at the same time?
[00:13:47] JZ: I think that's the, the happiness is the reinforcement after the behavior. Right? We are more likely to repeat the behavior if we feel happier as a result. As opposed to worse as a result.
[00:13:56] Carol Eugene Park: That's so interesting. But maybe this is just like having grown up with immigrant parents or shame-based culture is a thing. maybe I'm just that target demographic. Maybe that's where I'm coming from.
[00:14:05] JZ: I hate the shame, guilt tripping. narrative of,
[00:14:09] Carol Eugene Park: but it works.
[00:14:10] JZ: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. I, I disagree. I think. Sure, it works in the short term because you're scared to death. You want to survive. That's only the short-term effect. But climate action is not a short-term game. We need a sustained long-term behavior change. Only happiness can sustain it, not shame or guilt or anger.
[00:14:29] Jeevan Sangha: Yeah. I was thinking a lot about sustained action too, especially with shame. Like if having a positive association with doing something that has a greater good or greater purpose, can that be something where have you considered. This might be like way down the line where you could phase out using a lottery system? Where it's kind of become more normalized to do this thing and you've associated it positively, with your self concept or the impact on the world. What do you think?
[00:14:56] Jade Radke: definitely that's possible. I think it would of course, depend on the exact thing that we're talking about. Like I would never argue to get rid of the deposit refund. Uh, a lot of people rely on that for additional income. So, I don't think that everything that we have rewards set up for should be phased out. But some things absolutely, there is a lot of previous research that does this usually in a different area, often with people, but it's learning new skills. With that sort of reward consistency and then slowly fading out that reward in order to sustain it.
[00:15:29] because often what will happen is if we just remove the reward immediately, just cold turkey, people will go back to what they were doing. But if we take that slow fade out approach, people are a lot more likely to just continue the behavior anyways. Almost turning it. Into that variable ratio schedule of reinforcement and then slowly thinning out that schedule until it's gone. People are more likely to continue it than if you just take it away right away.
[00:15:54] Carol Eugene Park: I just want to clarify So for this particular study, it's about that 10-cent refund that we have. Not necessarily the people who are taking bottles that homeowners might just leave for them as income, correct?
[00:16:10] Jade Radke: Yeah, that's right. I've heard this well from people who say. I leave it out so that low-income people can take them and grab them, but we have no data on if that's actually happening or not, or how much of that is actually.
[00:16:22] Being taken by them, or some passerby is grabbing and throwing in the trash, or we really don't know how much that's actually contributing to recycling, or if it's just getting taken by the wind and going into the ocean, we, we have no idea.
[00:16:37] We didn't explicitly look at the population that in Vancouver are often referred to as binners, so people would go around and collect cans and bottles to return. We did not have any of those people in our research, so that's an important thing to consider and we want to look at them in future studies to see what sort of choices they would make and how this would impact them. but this is exactly why we are not advocating to replace that guaranteed 10 cents, we just want to add the option for people if they so wish to participate in that lottery, but still giving people the option for that guarantee if they need it or want it.
[00:17:13] I'll also just say too quickly that if the concern is wanting to give those funds to people who need it Return It has an option to donate your refund to charity. So, you could also go that road, recycle them at the depot, you're making sure that they're getting recycled properly, and then you can choose to donate the funds to a charity as well.
[00:17:34] JZ: And that's what UBC is doing. They collect the bottles and use the money to fund the food bank at UBC. So, it's a pro-social incentive.
[00:17:41] Jeevan Sangha: And what are some of the considerations or potential challenges that you've had to weigh when thinking about implementing this new option? Is there anything that came to mind as you were doing your research where you were like, huh? Like how are we going to get ahead of this potential challenge?
[00:17:57] Jade Radke: I think one potential challenge is public perception. A lot of people ask us, you know, is this gambling? How is this different from gambling? Could people get addicted to this? And so, we've done a lot of pre-emptive research into that. And everything that we've found has suggested that it is very different from gambling in that sort of way.
[00:18:17] There's a lot of things that make it distinct. It doesn't have the lights and sounds, and the losses disguised as wins, like a lot of gambling does. You also can't re-bet any winnings immediately because you're not betting money, you're, you're inputting bottles. So even if you do win a prize immediately, you can't just sit there and refeed it into the machine, which is what contributes to a lot of gambling behavior. So, I think just having a lot of education around how this is distinct from gambling is something really important to consider right from the beginning and that public education piece of it.
[00:18:53] JZ: Um, another challenge we considered is how much should we pay? Like what is the largest reward we can give? So, in the study we went up to a thousand dollars and that’s only a point, 1% chance of getting it, meaning you have to. Return 10,000 bottles to get a thousand dollars, right? That's the, the 10-cent payoff. That's very unlikely. Like that is, I don't know, I think less than getting struck by lightning or something. But Norway I think has a similar system where they offer a jackpot, so million-dollar prize. In addition, they also offer a smaller, more frequent prices, so that's another system we can introduce, which is a jackpot that rarely anybody wins. But there's more frequent, like smaller prizes people can get. So that just as a reward to keep them going. So that's another consideration is like, what are the prizes?
[00:19:40] Jade Radke: Something that is really interesting and important to consider was specifically that we found in our study. People weren't any less happy after. Not winning anything than people who did get money back. So, the people who chose a thousand dollars option, nobody in our study won that at any point.
[00:19:58] We didn't have enough participants, so the odds didn't work out, but those people were not any less happy than the people who chose the guaranteed refund and did get money back. So, it seems like there might not be negative impacts to our happiness for not winning and that just playing the game might be enough to offset not winning that money back.
[00:20:18] Carol Eugene Park: Is that including like the feeling of like they, they weren't even disappointed?
[00:20:22] Jade Radke: Yeah, so the question we asked was specifically about happiness. So, we asked them before they found out whether they won anything, how happy they were feeling about the opportunity to get money back for returning their bottles and then.
[00:20:34] After they found out, we asked them how happy they were feeling right now about their experience in the study. So, it was an, a whole overview of the process and people who chose that thousand dollars and, and didn't win anything, rated it about the same happiness as people who did get money back.
[00:20:51] Carol Eugene Park: I mean, I guess you guys are the experts of psychology, what's the reason there? What do you think?
[00:20:55] Jade Radke: Of course, it will depend person to person, right? We all have different risk tolerances and things like that. Some people might be really disappointed, some people might just be really happy for the chance to play, which is what we kind of found and what we are using to sort of explain this.
[00:21:12] So playing the lottery gives its own utility and reward. Finding out whether or not you won is a reward in and of itself. It appeases that, oh, what did I win? Did I not win? And just finding out gives you that little bit of happiness as well, even if you didn't win. So that's one reason a lot of people have tied playing the lottery to higher happiness before the draw, and no difference after the draw between people who won a small prize and people who didn't win anything.
[00:21:41] So it seems pretty consistent with lottery right now. People seem to just play the lottery for fun. Most people, when you ask them, do you play the lottery because you expect you're going to win? They say no, but they just have fun playing it.
[00:21:53] Carol Eugene Park: I feel like the closest thing I can compare this to is when you add something to your cart, but you don't buy it. Same serotonin boost.
[00:22:01] JZ: Exactly.
[00:22:01] Jeevan Sangha: I'm just happy to play the game.
[00:22:03] JZ: Yeah. I mean, I think most people in our study only brought back a few bottles, one or two, because we did the study at food courts in Vancouver, so you just had your lunch, you are throwing away your beverage container. So instead of getting 10 cents, you had a shot and a thousand dollars. That's an important context. Now, if I brought a hundred bottles, like if I carried a giant bag. I didn't win anything as opposed to getting $10 back. Maybe I'll be a little less happy.
[00:22:28] Jeevan Sangha: I'm trying to play the bottle lottery now. I feel like just having it be gamified is fun. It's a new element that you don't have otherwise. Right. So
[00:22:36] JZ: we're working on that idea. So, if there's the lottery is in place somewhere, we will let people know. We're talking to Encorp Canada. So the, the organization that runs the Return IT program in BC but the idea is to introduce reverse vending machines to food courts, these concentrated spots with a lot of beverage containers that are not recycled, so we wanted to target areas with a lot of loss of bottles. we want to capture the 20%. And hopefully, you know, introduce the reverse vending machines. Basically, you insert the bottles into the machine, and you get money back, and then you can choose the ten cent option, or you can choose the lottery option on the machine.
[00:23:13] And that's how Norway does it. It's the recycling lottery they have in place. So, we're working on using that to one of the food courts in Vancouver.
[00:23:20] Jeevan Sangha: So, what do you think, Carol? Could you see yourself opting in for a recycling lottery system?
[00:23:26] Carol Eugene Park: I don't know if I was the demographic audience for this, because I don't think that would work on me psychologically. But I can see how other people might be intrigued. I mean, I'm an either like all or nothing kind of girl, so I wouldn't even bother.
[00:23:37] But now that I know that there was a purpose for that ten cent on the receipt, I will just do it. What about you?
[00:23:44] Jeevan Sangha: Honestly, I feel like I'm someone who loves a little game. And I love the fact that like recycling can be gamified. So, I am probably the ideal demographic for it. I already returned my bottles, but I think the idea of like winning a little more or somebody else winning a little more, it sparks joy.
[00:23:59] I can't lie. She says sparks joy without sounding.
[00:24:02] Carol Eugene Park: joyful.
[00:24:03] Jeevan Sangha: What were some of your key takeaways from the chat? Okay. Firstly, something that really shocked me was how much we in Vancouver need to step up our recycling game. I mean, can you believe that Vancouver's only at 50% for returnables?
[00:24:16] Carol Eugene Park: I could not, that shook me.
[00:24:18] The fact that also Alberta is higher, like ranked higher than BC is crazy to me. No offense to Alberta.
[00:24:25] Jeevan Sangha: Yeah. I mean, who would've thought, what about you? What were some of your key takeaways?
[00:24:28] Carol Eugene Park: I learned that I cannot throw batteries in the garbage. But yeah, again, like back to the ten cent thing, I did not know that there was a purpose to these environmental taxes that come with everything that we purchased.
[00:24:41] Like even with technology, you'll see a tech fee or something. I thought that was just for fun. But no, that has a purpose, and we do actually have to participate and returning and then as a result, getting a refund back because. That was our money in the first place, so that was really cool.
[00:24:56] Jeevan Sangha: Yeah, I think conversations like these are really informative because these are things that no one really explicitly tells you.
[00:25:01] People just sort of know it, and so unless you have a conversation with someone whose job it is to research these. Dynamics, but there are probably so many other people who didn't know either. So, no shame here in the chat.
[00:25:10] Carol Eugene Park: This is why science communication is super important people. Well, thanks everyone for listening.
[00:25:15] Make sure you catch our next episode by subscribing or following our show on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're feeling your feels, please drop us a review. You can find me on Blue Sky at Carol Eugene Park,
[00:25:26] Jeevan Sangha: and me on Twitter at Jeevan K. Sangha. From Here Forward is an alumni UBC podcast produced by Podium Podcast Company.