Smart Waste suggests that World Clean Up Day would be a good time to start a culture change as to how we view waste and recycling.
BILLED as the biggest one-day civic action in human history the organizers expect millions of people in 180 countries to participate. 19 September is 2020’s World Clean Up Day. It certainly draws attention to our environment and clears mountains of refuse. But is it enough?
To be effective in cleaning up the world we need a change of culture. If World Clean Up Day is the start of a culture change then we are all for it. In our experience, culture trumps most other forms of change.
An example of a change in recycling culture proves the point. We are often called upon to assist organizations to introduce a waste management system. A crucial part of any system is to teach people to recycle. There will always be individuals in an organization who inherently believe in recycling, a secretary who saves her used paper and then either reuses it or takes it to a drop off site to be recycled.
These individuals do not represent the culture of the organization however. Maybe the organization is a manufacturing operation and the managers are incentivized by meeting production quotas. In such an organization very little attention is usually paid to waste or cleaning up production processes.
There are several ways to address this. Buying new containers and clearly marking them as general waste and recyclables seldom works. It costs a lot of money with little return – but it looks good. A more effective way of cleaning up the waste and learning to recycle is to change the organization’s culture.
Which is why we prefer to first grab the hearts of the individuals and get them excited about the benefits of eliminating waste and recycling. Once converted the individuals will quickly change the organizations culture. That is the time to install the new containers.
If the World Clean Up Day helps individuals understand the part each of us plays in generating waste and the effects of such waste on our environment it will have been successful. Once the understanding is there then communities and organizations will be ready to start cleaning up our world.
