Keep Plastic Out of the Green Bin! A new anti-contamination campaign to improve compost quality

Lisa Duba

This past year, we accepted the challenge to help San Mateo County develop a countywide social marketing campaign designed to improve compost quality by addressing contamination of food scraps and yard trimmings collected in the county.

The Project

Farmer: we need you help making healthy compostGigantic Idea Studio developed a scope of work that included as much of the community-based social marketing (CBSM) process as time and budget would allow:

  • Secondary research review of data from haulers, public agency RethinkWaste, transfer stations and composting facilities and similar campaigns,
  • Primary research via focus groups, with message development and testing and finally,
  • Campaign creative and a pilot study toolkit, with an implementation guide.

Partnering for Success

Gigantic partnered with R3 Consulting Group to analyze data and identify the top contaminants and sources of contamination. Unsurprisingly, plastics, especially film plastics, were most common. Multi-family dwellings (MFDs) and commercial businesses were the top sources. To keep within the time and budget, we chose plastic as the target contaminant, and MFDs as the target audience.

We also partnered with Green Motivate to look at messaging of similar campaigns conducted in Vermont; Boulder, Colorado; Oregon and Snohomish County, Washington. Each had compelling messages and images— some of which inspired our campaign.

Contaminated green bin means contaminated compostPartnering with Engel Research Partners, we conducted focus groups in English, Spanish and Cantonese to test selected messages and learn more about the barriers and benefits related to food scrap and yard trimming collection programs.

Top Takeaways

  • Most people were unclear about what happens to the contents of their green bins after they are collected.
  • Once they understood that compost was used in gardens, parks and farms, residents seemed more motivated to learn how to prevent contamination.
  • Motivating messages included links to local agriculture, farmers/farmworkers and health.
  • But people also wanted clear, easy to understand instructions on how to compost correctly— not just inspiration and fluff.
  • Bin is the preferred term (vs. carts) to refer to wheeled carts and larger rolloff bins.

From these learnings we created a messaging strategy to inform a storytelling video, article and social media posts that included:

  • Awareness messaging: “Contaminated Green Bin=Contaminate Compost”
  • Motivational messaging: “We need your help making healthy compost for San Mateo County gardens, parks and farms,” and
  • Food in, plastic out - green cartInstructional messaging: “Keep All Plastic Out of the Green Bin” and “Food In/Plastic Out”.

For on-the-ground interventions, the campaign toolkit also included bin area signage, a downloadable kitchen sign, and a pilot study methodology.  To reach the top monolingual, non-English speaking communities, we partnered with InterEthnica to adapt all campaign collateral into Spanish and Chinese.

While the CBSM components will be implemented locally by stakeholders, the County will be doing a media campaign to support on-the-ground efforts, running sometime this fall.

Lizzie Carrade of the San Mateo County Sustainability Department presented the campaign at the California Resource Recovery Association Annual Conference this year. We are proud to have been part of the team trying to address this pervasive problem.

 

The Role of Art in Making Change

Stefanie Pruegel

Angela Davis at Oakland Museum graphicBig, complex environmental issues like climate change can easily overwhelm and lead to resignation and denial, instead of creative problem solving. While facts and how-to information have their place in environmental behavior change campaigns, so do art and fostering imagination beyond rational understanding. The Oakland Museum of California currently has an excellent exhibition about African American educator and activist Angela Davis, whose fight against mass incarceration and racism in the 60’s and 70’s made her an icon of Black liberation around the world. The show draws on a huge archive of newspaper clippings, posters, pamphlets, buttons and pop culture objects to tell Davis’s story in the political and cultural context of the time. What makes many of the visuals so powerful is how the call for social change and art are intertwined. Most striking are the political posters with bold, screen-printed images and collages.

In a recorded interview, looping on a large screen as part of the exhibit, Davis comments on the crucial role art plays in social change movements. She notes, “Art can produce knowledge that doesn’t occur with a simple political speech.” Such knowledge doesn’t arise from taking in facts alone and involves much more than the rational part of our brain. As with storytelling, art activates all parts of the human brain, enabling the level of empathy and engagement that can indeed motivate the change we need to see. This is especially important when there is urgency to act but the path forward isn’t clear. As Davis says, “Art enriches our ideas about change. It allows us to grasp what we cannot yet understand and enables us to imagine different modes of being.”

Vivid visual communication is a staple of effective behavior change campaigns.The upcoming Earth Month offers an opportunity to make art a campaign focus. How do you use the power of art in your outreach?

Hard Numbers, Hard Truths: How Data from Spot Checks, Surveys and More Guide Outreach

The Gigantic Team

We know it’s best to base outreach on data that we get from research. Formal research can be costly, but actionable data is all around us – and it can help make public outreach more effective.

For the 2022 California Resource Recovery Association (CRRA) Conference, Gigantic participated in a session about the use of surveys and spot checks to guide outreach. Our presentation gave examples from two of Gigantic’s clients: Cities of Milpitas and Livermore.

Among the suggestions:

  • Integrating some research into your outreach plan is better than none. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good: include lid flips and surveys into your budgets as feasible. There’s also data that does not need a specific budget because:
  • Outreach data is all around us. Your agency may not be able to afford a statistically rigorous survey, but quantitative data from hauler reports or lid flipping can be useful guides to what is working and what challenges arise. Qualitative data (individual questions or reactions that represent the concerns of a larger audience) can be gathered from phone help lines, comments at public meetings or from social media posts. Website statistics show us which content is or is not being accessed, what users are searching for and how/when they accessed the site; this is all guiding data for outreach.
  • Use data to react in real time. Are you getting a lot of questions on your social channel about plastic bags? Are lid flips showing an increase in a particular item of contamination? Respond to these questions with blog or social posts, or additional newsletter content, as promptly as possible.

See the full presentation here:

Learn more about CRRA here.

HHWhat? Outreach Challenges of Household Hazardous Waste

The Gigantic Team

Household Hazardous Waste: what a term! It’s a mouthful: three words that don’t really clarify what it encompasses. Add to that, city, hauler and marketing professionals like to shorten the term to HHW – which sounds even more mysterious. The EPA defines Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) as “leftover household products that can catch fire, react, or explode under certain circumstances, or that are corrosive or toxic.” Common HHW items include fluorescent bulbs, batteries, gasoline, household chemicals, pesticides, paints, antifreeze and asbestos…a real hodgpodge of toxic stuff.

At Gigantic, when tackling an HHW project, we start out thinking about our audience’s awareness of the problem. The problem with HHW is that it encompasses things as seemingly harmless as half-empty hair spray to those more easily perceived as dangerous, such as pesticides. When describing the hazards, we like the wording “toxic to you and/or the environment” to encompass all the potential negative outcomes.

Understanding HHW: Does It Matter?

When doing outreach, it’s important to describe the issue or item in question before you tell people what to do about it and give them a reason to dispose carefully. However, when considering HHW, we wonder, “do people really need to know the term?” Not necessarily. Communicating how HHW items should be handled can work either way:

  1. Explain the term and help people understand which items are considered HHW, then let them know how to safely dispose of it.
  2. Encourage use of a general “what goes where” app like StopWaste’s re:source tool that includes HHW items, without requiring the user to identify them as such. (IMAGE w link https://resource.stopwaste.org

image of search in re:source

Connect HHW Items with Real World Examples

It can also be helpful to put HHW disposal in context. When might residents be most likely to think about getting rid of HHW? Maybe before putting their house up for sale, when contemplating a spring cleaning or when tackling DIY house projects? Messaging that connects an activity with HHW items is more likely to be memorable.

Go Beyond the Carts

It could help if HHW items were called out more prominently in recycling guides as a category that needs different treatment, such as a “Not Accepted Curbside” or “Special Items”  category.

Go for Impact

It also makes sense to focus on the HHW items that are most problematic in your area. Rather than implying the need to grasp a long list of items, focus on raising awareness about one item at a time, choosing those that would be most impactful if they were disposed of properly.

Thinking through the challenges and solutions of communicating about HHW before starting campaign design will save time and effort, while keeping people and nature safer.

SB 1383: Composting Outreach to Multi-Family Residents

Lisa Duba
Man emptying compost pail into correct cart
A new campaign encourages organic material composting for multi-family residents.

SB 1383 requires everyone in California — residents and businesses — to separate and compost organic materials, such as plant trimmings, leaves, grass and food scraps. In much of the Bay Area, yard trimmings and food scrap collection has been offered to single-family households for years. But the new law is providing a much-needed push to roll out food scrap collection service to multi-unit buildings. These buildings, which can have a few as four and up to hundreds of individual units, provide challenges, but also opportunities to keep more organic material out of the landfill.

Food scrap collection is an entirely new concept to the vast majority of apartment, condo and and townhome residents, and a clear and effective outreach program is a must-have. Outreach is ideally implemented at each building site. A successful program requires a good partnership between the service provider, the city or waste agency, and the property manager.

Gigantic is proud to have been part of a great collaboration with the South Bayside Waste Management Authority and their service provider, Recology, to create a composting campaign for apartment and condo residents.

Our team helped focus the campaign for the end-user of the program: the resident. The campaign will support the work of Recology’s implementation team and include a doorhanger for individual units and a poster for lobbies, trash areas and mail rooms. Both highlight the new food scrap composting requirement and link via QR code to a step-by-step instructional video. To support this site-specific outreach, we’ll be promoting the video on social media via paid promotion.

The video works to show, not tell, and visually communicates the food scrap recycling process. The addition of select graphic captions help identify key steps in the process. Voice-over in three languages (English, Spanish and Cantonese) help reach residents who may otherwise miss the message, while providing more detailed information.

Our video also includes 1383-required messaging about the law and its goal to reduce greenhouse gases.

We enjoyed working with this highly motivated client team. The program rolled out in June and we look forward to seeing the results!

Zero Waste Holiday Outreach — 2020 Style

Lisa Duba

Well, if there’s one word none of us would like to hear in 2021, it’s “unprecedented.” Throughout 2020, so many things we took for granted in the world of zero waste and recycling outreach, such as promoting reusable bags and cups, had to be postponed or replaced with COVID-19-related topics, such as sorting shipping waste or putting masks and gloves in the trash.

Now the holidays are here, and we find ourselves in the same outreach predicament. We can’t rely on tried-and-true holiday campaigns like our “Giving the Gift of Good Times” video for Santa Clara and Marin Counties. (Click here for the 2019 version). No-waste gifts that involve groups of people, such as fitness classes, dining out, amusement park passes, or theater tickets are not a viable option this year. Even food waste reduction topics need a fresh take, as gatherings have been reduced in size or cancelled altogether, and some of our neighbors are facing food insecurity.

create joy, not waste holiday ideas

For our clients this year, we helped adjust messaging to cover these topics in a way that aligns with public health guidelines and new realities. For example, for Palo Alto, we created a “Create Joy, Not Waste” ad, web page and bill insert (above) to align with hosting a small gathering with Zero Waste style. Actions like portion planning, using reusable dishes, recycling bottles and cans and decorating with compostable decorations still make sense, even if it’s just for your own household.

We re-envisioned our Zero Waste gift idea list to remove gifts for in-person activities and include those that offer online versions, such as art classes and music lessons and streaming theater. Local options for all of these were available, offering another benefit to the community. Outdoor recreation is at an all-time high, so national and state park passes can replace amusement parks.

And lastly, if staying home means we’re more likely to buy “stuff” this year than past years, we made sure to provide options for zero waste gift ideas that eliminate or greatly reduce packaging waste—shampoo bars, unpackaged handmade soaps, or subscriptions for refillable beauty products.

We hope this inspires you all to keep the Zero Waste holiday outreach traditions going. Small tweaks to the messaging are all it takes.

 

Peter Mach Joins the Gigantic Team

Kas Neteler
Peter Mach at COP21
Peter attended the historic COP21 in Paris.

Gigantic Idea Studio is proud to introduce our newest Associate, Peter Mach. Originally from Pennsylvania, Peter lived in the Bay Area for four years. Prior to joining the Gigantic team, Peter worked for Code REDD, an environmental nonprofit based in Mill Valley, focused on preserving forests, protect wildlife, empowering people and reducing emissions. As Assistant Director, Peter led the organization’s flagship program, Stand For Trees, an innovative grassroots campaign that empowers individuals to take action against forest loss, the number one cause of species extinction and a contributor to climate change.

Before moving to the Bay Area, Peter lived in Washington, DC, and worked at the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) on forestry policy and legality issues. EIA is a pioneer in undercover investigations to expose environmental crime around the world. Peter contributed to these efforts and promoted the Forest Legality Initiative, a multi-stakeholder initiative working to reduce illegal logging by increasing awareness and supporting legally sourced timber and forest products. This work took Peter to five continents in just two years.

Peter holds a dual graduate degree from Colorado State University, where he studied how industry, non-profits and government agencies can collaborate to find solutions to environmental challenges. As part of his thesis, he examined responsible fishing policies in Chiapas, Mexico. He also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic and domestically as an AmeriCorps Team Leader in Alaska.

Peter at Tahoe
Peter on a hike in Desolation Wilderness, El Dorado National Forest

Peter first became passionate about the natural world growing up in central Pennsylvania, where he earned his B.A. in Media Studies from Pennsylvania State University. Building on all his experiences and learnings to date, Peter is interested in—and good at—finding solutions at the nexus of conservation and livelihoods, in particular around the complexities of climate change. He looks forward to bringing his skills to the Gigantic team. Outside of his time at Gigantic, Peter can be found riding his bicycle in the Marin Headlands, on his kayak or otherwise enjoying life in the Bay Area.

Facebook Changes…Panic Time?

Nancy Roberts
Consistent hashtag use, attractive visuals and a clear call to action, as in this post from StopWaste, will help your posts’ reach.

It has always been a challenge for mission-driven Brand Pages, such as public agencies, to reach and grow their followers on Facebook. In January Facebook announced they are “changing the News Feed to prioritize posts from friends, family members and groups over posts from publishers and brands.” The stated reason is to promote a more fulfilling experience with the channel and discourage “passive scrolling” without engagement. The change will favor posts that elicit comments, rather than passive consumption or “likes.” (“Favoring” means that posts will show to more people.)

One impetus for the decision is recent negative press about Facebook, including hosting fake news and being purposely designed to foster addictive behaviors and to keep fans “hooked” on the channel. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has stated his personal commitment to leading these changes, thanks to a new view of his creation’s strengths and weaknesses.

How Will Facebook Algorithm Changes Affect Me?

Organizational Facebook pages are reaching just a tiny fraction of their followers with each post. Even before the latest changes, organic reach for Facebook Pages was plummeting, from nearly 100% of fans in 2007 to less than 2% today.

Some immediate predictions include:

  • People will spend less time (but supposedly higher quality time) on Facebook.
  • Posts may become more “shocking” with the goal of eliciting reactions.
  • Comments will be prized, and the longer the better.

Note: this announcement includes no changes to the advertising model, which many critics point to as the fount of toxicity.

What Can I Do?

What is a page manager to do? Like the stock market, it’s probably best to keep calm and carry on, rather than trying to overhaul strategy with every change. There are widely varying predictions of the result of this latest action.

Gigantic recommends to all clients:

  • Continue posting high quality, relevant content.
  • Consider making posts more conversational in style and asking for feedback and responses, including encouraging people to tag your organization.
  • Focus on quality of posts more than quantity; this becomes even more true with the renewed emphasis on posts that promote conversation.
  • Monitor your posts and respond to comments promptly, using a consistent “voice” for your page.
  • Be prepared for decreased reach of videos, which had been highly favored by the Facebook algorithm.  (Facebook’s reasoning is that videos promote passive consumption rather than active dialogue.) Consider incorporating calls for reaction and encouraging dialogue about your video posts.
  • Continue to incorporate ads and boosted posts to increase your messages’ reach.
  • Be a good neighbor: Share and tag other organizations’ content in your posts, as long as they are relevant to you.
  • Don’t Panic!

As always, Gigantic Idea Studio is happy to discuss your social media strategy and make recommendations to enhance your environmental outreach.

 

Observations from a Plastic-Free July

Nancy Roberts
Expressing gratitude for change is important.

At Gigantic, we work hard to “get inside the heads” of the audiences we try to reach. How difficult is it to get someone to change behavior, even to be aware of that behavior? I experimented on myself last month, when I joined the #PlasticFreeJuly movement, and tried to avoid buying or accepting anything made of plastic for 31 days.

The first thing I noticed was anxiety, and a tendency to over-compensate. Should I stock up on plastic on June 30 so I could get through the month comfortably? What would I have to give up? Just how uncomfortable is this change going to be?

How can a behavior change specialist address her own fears of change and scarcity?

The Thrill of Failure

My first day was a failure, but also a tremendous success. I went out to lunch and ordered a cocktail (it’s OK, it was a Saturday!) The drink came with a straw – I had forgotten to ask for no straw. Disaster in the first few hours of the experiment! I posted about my personal failure to Facebook and Twitter, tagging the restaurant. I was amazed to see several supportive comments, even from “non-green” people with whom I had not interacted in years, saying they, too, were sick of plastic and that I should keep trying. Then, lo and behold, the restaurant responded to me via Facebook, saying that they, too, loved this particular cocktail and from now on would serve it without a straw. Victory! I took away from this experience that it can be more effective to post about one’s own weakness, to acknowledge error, rather than trying to be a brave and mighty eco-hero.

Challenges kept on coming throughout the month. In some cases there were joyous substitutions – I discovered that bread sliced at the bakery and wrapped in paper did just fine in the freezer, so breakfast was set.

Plastic = Convenience

As the month wore on, I realized that plastic equals convenience, and that I had to re-align my idea of what was convenient. Yes, it takes longer to bring your own containers and use the bulk bins of the market. It takes more effort to go to the cheese shop where the owner was happy to wrap my slices in paper – not an option at the supermarket. On the flip side, I had wonderful conversations with folks behind the counter; some were bemused by my requests, some were delighted. But this was an opportunity to connect with people in my neighborhood whom I had, frankly, barely noticed before. How to translate this greater feeling of community to our work?

When To Give Up

In some cases, going plastic-free meant going without. Tortillas and potato chips, indeed all salty junk food, were not an option, unless ordered in a restaurant. I had to cheat in a couple of instances, choosing less plastic over no plastic for things like toothpaste and olive oil. Luckily I don’t take a lot of medicines, but when I ran out of Vitamin D…I caved and bought more in a plastic bottle. I noticed the feeling of guilt and this time I did not share my “failure.”

It’s August now, and I have relented a bit, but the plastic-free exercise has stuck with me. The main thing I took away from July was a heightened awareness of plastic’s never ending presence in our lives. Entire aisles of the supermarket were off limits – which after a while felt quite restful. Connecting this ubiquity with the fact that of the 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic ever made, 6.3 billion metric tons have become plastic waste, with no end in sight. After this experiment, I am reminded as we plan campaigns that in many cases we are asking people to change, to give up something, to be inconvenienced. These are big asks. While these changes seem essential and even joyful to those of us in the environmental field, I believe it is essential to integrate humility and understanding into our campaigns, so that people feel understood and supported as we travel together on this journey to more sustainable living.

Top Tips for an Effective Recycling Poster

Nancy Roberts

recycling poster sampleEffective environmental behavior change—like any behavior change—relies on meeting people where they are. This can mean communicating at the point of action, right where and when the behavior is happening. For instance, a recycling flyer sent to a resident’s home is a fine first touch to raise awareness, but placing recycling information directly on the bins or in the area where trash is being disposed of is an important prompt that is likely to get the best results.

What is the most effective way to display recycling/composting information? While each case is different, there are some general rules that will help increase recycling/composting while reducing contamination:

Use consistent language.

Do you say Carts or Bins? Compost or Organics? Make sure the terms you’ve chosen are used consistently in all your print pieces, including posters and bin labels, and also match the content on your website.

Use pictures and words.

Different people learn and remember differently – some people recall words, others, images. Using both will increase your chances of being clear and memorable. Remember that posters are typically viewed from a some distance away, so make sure images and text are sized large enough.

Be selective.

You probably don’t want to list EVERY single item that can go into the recycling or compost. Choose most common items or those often placed incorrectly. The selection of items also depends on where the poster will be used—items recycled in an office are likely different from those recycled in a restaurant kitchen.

Keep it neat.

A clean and simple layout is most likely to keep the focus on proper sorting. If a poster has too much information it may be perceived as too much effort to understand and get ignored. If you’d like to point to details, include your website URL prominently.

Stay up to date!

Did bin colors change with the new hauler contract, or are you now accepting some items for recycling that you weren’t before? Make sure your print and online collateral match your current program.

For further tips on displaying recycling information, see

5 Tips to Turn Your Environmental Outreach from “Meh” to “Magnificent”