The village initiative project: Achieving household waste minimisation in the rural locale

The research aimed to tackle behavioural modification with regard to waste minimisation in rural based households, given the logistical problems of spatiality of properties, access and low population density. Rather than making individual types of behaviour e.g. recycling or composting, the focus of attention, these behaviours were engendered to support the intended goal of reducing residual waste. Marketed as a community initiative, 50 households were invited to reduce the amount of residual waste they produced given information via a newsletter, support from a dedicated community waste worker, domestic euqipment and convenient recycling points as an alternative to kerbside collection of recyclate. In addition, primary schoolchildren were specifically targeted as a further means of motivation by provideing a weekly after-shchool environmental club. All residual waste was analysed to provide feedback to participants and highlight waste types they had difficuty minimising. The research was conducted over three years with reducing levels of support over time.Results indicate that as a consequence of a fully co-ordinated approach, there was an 89% reduciton in residual waste arisings from an average 18kg per household per week to 1.45kg per household per fortnight - householders requested a change from weekly to alternate weekly refuse uplifts and in year three most only presented waste once a month or every six weeks, due to the small amounts produced. Analysis revealed that no waste category was totally eliminated. The most motivated family member was the adult female. There were problems with adult males and teenage children with regard to motivation due to outside influences and not being responsible for housework. Although set in the rural context, many of the techniques may be adopted in urban areas an an aid to achieving Waste Strategy targets