*3.7. Assumptions*

The assumption is made that the respondent as an individual (i) is an accurate proxy for his/her household's recycling behavior and (ii) answered the question from the perspective of someone with the specific recycling behavior.

#### **4. Results and Discussion**

The demographic representation of the sample is shown in Appendix B.

## *4.1. Recycling Behaviour*

The results show that 26.0% of South African households living in large urban areas recycle varying quantities of materials at varying intervals while 74.0% of households never recycle (Table 2). Additionally, 4.0% of the respondents come from high recycling households with a dedicated recycling behavior. The respondents from households with medium or casual recycling activity comprise 14.2% of the total sample and those with low or sporadic recycling activity comprise 7.8% of households tested. The majority (74.0%) of the respondents represents households not recycling any of their household waste (non-recycling households). These sub-groups are used to portray the results in the following sections.


**Table 2.** Descriptive statistics for the total sample and sub-categories.

\* for paper and packaging recyclables where 7 = best possible score for recycling activity and 1 = no recycling activity.

In the bottom group of recycling households—the low or sporadic recyclers—the behavior score band of between 1 and 2 is very narrow in comparison with the dedicated recyclers (5 to 7). This is because of the relatively small percentage of households that separate their recyclables in South Africa in comparison with many developed countries. For example, both the UK studies reported much higher percentages of recycling households [26,49] when compared to this South African study.

#### *4.2. Perceived Barriers to Recycling—All Respondents*

Results from the selected (i) one most important reason, and (ii) three main reasons why people do not recycle are discussed below.

#### *(i) The One Most Important Reason*

From 10 options, 28.1% of the respondents selected *no time* (ranked first) as the one most important reason why people do not recycle, followed by a *lack of knowledge* (14.0%, ranked second), *insufficient space* (12.5%, ranked third), *facilities inconvenient* (10.4%, ranked fourth) and *not responsible* (8.6%, ranked fifth) (Table 3). These five factors attracted almost three quarters (73.6%) of the responses. These results, drawn from a large percentage of the respondents, sugges<sup>t</sup> that a combination of these five factors is required to enable households to recycle. The high percentage of respondents selecting *no time* as compared to the other factors shows that, although there are several barriers that could possibly prevent household recycling, the perception is that recycling is a time consuming activity. This finding is not unique to this study, which suggests that factors deterring household recycling behavior are not country specific. In Bangladesh, where 25.6% of the respondents indicated that they recycle sporadically or more often despite not having a convenient recycling scheme, lack of time (38.49%) and no space in the home (37.2%) are the main reasons for not recycling [50]. A Malaysian study found that inadequate facilities (30.9% of the respondents), followed by inconvenience/no time (25.2%), lack of information (10.8%), too much effort needed (10.3%), and not interested (9.4%) are the main reason why people in Penang do not recycle [51].

**Table 3.** Perceptions why people do not recycle—order of priority (rank) of the one most important reason.


\* Ranked from 1 to 10 including from the highest to the lowest percentage of respondents selecting each option.

The low percentage (3.3%, ranked 10th) of respondents selecting *no service* suggests that recycling services exist, but this does not ignore the fact that recycling facilities are perceived to be inconvenient (*facilities inconvenient*, ranked fifth) or is not the kind of service respondents would prefer (e.g., *no curbside collection*, ranked seventh).

Due to the high percentage (74.0%, Table 2) of non-recycling households in South Africa, the results are dominated by perceptions originating from non-recycling households. However, the results show that the same five reasons were selected the most by the respondents from both recycling and non-recycling households. However, respondents from recycling households give higher priority to *insufficient space* (with 14.4% ranked second following *no time* 24.3%, ranked first) than to *lack of knowledge* (13.4%, ranked third). This could imply that recycling households already have the knowledge that enable them to recycle, but the space the recyclables take up and the time it takes to recycle is something they are confronted with on an ongoing daily basis.

#### *(ii) The Three Main Reasons*

The results from the three main reasons (Table 4) show that the three situational factors at household level, which includes *no space*, *no time*, and *dirty and untidy*, are the main reasons why people do not recycle. The priority given to these three factors sugges<sup>t</sup> that in-house barriers carry much weight when it comes to the recycling of household waste. *Lack of knowledge* of what can and cannot be recycled and *inconvenient recycling facilities* are also important reasons why people do not recycle. The results from the quantitative national survey sugges<sup>t</sup> that factors that would assist with in-house managemen<sup>t</sup> of separation at the source combined with the necessary knowledge and a convenient recycling facility would encourage household recycling. This finding is in line with the findings of international studies where lack of space [28], no time [23], dirty and unhygienic [43], lack of knowledge [27,29], and inconvenient recycling facilities [26,35] were identified as barriers to household recycling.


**Table 4.** Perceptions why people do not recycle—order of priority (rank) of the three main reasons.

\* Ranked from 1 to 10 from the highest to the lowest percentage of responses for each option. \*\* The three selected reasons totalled and expressed as a percentage of the total responses (three per respondent).

The combined effect of the three main reasons (Table 4) has a moderating or tempering effect on the results and shows which factors, apart from the most important reason (Table 3), contribute to why households do not recycle. Thus, the results from the selected three main reasons show which reasons, apart from the one which dominates, act as important barriers to household recycling. The small difference between the highest and lowest percentages (15% − 4.8% = 10.2%) could also be an indication that these 10 statements are all relevant and valid reasons why people do not recycle and that barriers to recycling could be context-specific.

Considering the responses from the total sample group, *insufficient space* attracted 15% of the responses (ranked first), followed by no time (14.9%, ranked second), dirty and untidy (12.4%, ranked third), lack of knowledge (12.3%, ranked fourth) and facilities inconvenient (10.8%, ranked fifth).

Similar to the results from the one most important reason, the results from both the recycling and non-recycling households show the same five factors as the main reasons why people do not recycle but with slight variation in ranking order. The main difference is that *lack of knowledge* (11.8%, ranked third) appears to be a more important factor among recycling households than *dirty and untidy* (11.6%, ranked fourth) but only marginally.

A comparison between the results from the one most important reason and the three main reasons shows that: *dirty and untidy,* ranked sixth in selecting the one most important reason, moved to third place when the three main reasons are considered. *Not responsible* (ranked fifth) as one of the top five reasons why people do not recycle moved to eighth place. In both, *not bothered* (6.9%) and *no service* (4.8%) are selected the least (ranked 9th and 10th, respectively) except for recycling households who acknowledge more so than non-recycling households that somewhat of a "bother" is needed (with 7.6% of the respondents selecting this factor, ranked eighth).

The five reasons receiving highest priority in this study are similar to Perrin and Barton's finding that inconvenience/no time, inconvenient or inadequate recycling facilities, storage/handling problems and lack of information were, in the absence of a curbside recycling scheme, the main reasons why people do not recycle [24]. Perrin and Barton conclude that convenience encompass several factors such as recycling scheme design, the level of knowledge a household needs to be able to participate in a recycling scheme, and the in-house handling of the recyclables [24]. All these convenience "barriers can be overcome with the introduction of a curbside recycling scheme which suits local circumstances" [24] (p. 65).

Personal responsibility normally motivates people to recycle more [52]. However, the data suggests that a sense of responsibility has a low priority among respondents from both recycling and non-recycling households in South Africa and, thus, is unlikely to be strong enough to overshadow the in-house difficulties as well as the difficulties experienced with services at this point in time in household recycling behavior in South Africa.

#### *4.3. Perceived Barriers to Recycling—Recycling Households*

Results from the separate analysis of the three sub-groups (high/dedicated, medium/casual, and low/sporadic) representing the recycling households bring nuances to the foreground, which would otherwise have been lost. Differentiating between the various levels of recycling households, results from the selected (i) one most important reason why people do not recycle and (ii) the three main reasons are shown and discussed below.

#### *(i) The One Most Important Reason*

The results show *no time* as having priority by all sub-groups as the one most important reason why people do not recycle (Table 5). The main differences between the sub-groups are that low recycling households give higher priority to *lack of knowledge* (ranked second) and *facilities inconvenient* (ranked third) than both the medium and high recycling households (ranked third and fourth, respectively). *Sufficient space* moves to the fifth ranked position among the low recycling households, likely because they recycle so sporadically that space to keep recyclables is outweighed by the other more pressing factors, which hamper recycling behavior such as *no time*, *lack of knowledge*, *facilities inconvenient,* and *not responsible*. *Insufficient space* also shares the fifth ranked place with *it makes no difference* and *no curbside service*.


**Table 5.** Comparing perceptions why people do not recycle across varying recycling levels—order of priority (rank) of the one most important reason.

\* Ranked from 1 to 10 from the highest to the lowest percentage of responses for each option.

These results sugges<sup>t</sup> that, apart from the time and knowledge needed to be able to recycle, households' understanding of the difference their recycling efforts can make and that they need to take responsibility for recycling are important factors to trigger or encourage household recycling. In addition, a curbside collection for recyclables or any other equally convenient recycling facility has the potential to motivate households that never or sporadically recycle to start to recycle or to recycle more regularly. The results also sugges<sup>t</sup> that respondents from high and medium recycling households ascribe lower priority (rank) to *no curbside service*, which could be an indication that these respondents perceive their recycling facilities to be more convenient than the low recycling households.

#### *(ii) The Three Main Reasons*

*Facilities inconvenient* received a higher priority among the low recycling households (12.3%, ranked fourth) compared to both the medium (10.7%, ranked fifth) and high recycling households (8.2%, ranked eighth) (Table 6). Similarly, *no curbside service* received a higher priority among the low recycling households (9.8%, ranked fifth) compared to both the medium (7.4%, ranked seventh) and the high recycling households (5.4%, ranked ninth). Although ranked ninth, *no service* attracted 6.6% of the responses from the low recycling households. In total, the service/facility related factors received 28.7% of the total responses from the low recycling households compared to 17.3% from the high recycling households. The large difference in priority between the low and high recycling households of the service/facility factors is in line with findings from UK studies, which sugges<sup>t</sup> that low recyclers are more likely to report problems related to recycling services [49] and high recyclers are more satisfied with their recycling schemes [26]. These findings sugges<sup>t</sup> that an improved recycling service is one of the major interventions needed to improve recycling behavior in South Africa. Several international studies highlight the importance of convenient recycling facilities especially for the low-recycling and non-recycling households [43,53]. However, it is not only access to a curbside recycling service but also awareness of other recycling facilities and especially the perceptions held of the convenience of these facilities that determine people's recycling behavior [17,54]. The reliability of a curbside scheme is important and especially the "lower-participating recyclers" prefer a weekly collection service, which could be a convenience preference or an indication of lack of space to store recyclables for longer periods [26] (p. 380).

While services received higher priority among the low recycling households, the results show that the combination of three factors known as *insufficient space*, *no time*, and *dirty and untidiness* attracted 44.1%, 42.1%, and 35.2% of the responses from the high, medium, and low recycling households, respectively. Thus, these in-house convenience factors appear to be more of an issue among the high recycling households. It is suggested that, as the low recycling households start to recycle

more regularly and at higher volumes, these in-house convenience factors will also become more of an issue and might overshadow other relevant barriers, which is seen in the results from the high recycling households.


**Table 6.** Comparing perceptions why people do not recycle across varying recycling levels—order of priority (rank) of the three main reasons why people do not recycle.

\* Ranked from 1 to 10 from the highest to the lowest percentage of responses for each option. \*\* The three selected reasons totalled and expressed as a percentage of the total responses (three per respondent).

Lack of knowledge attracted responses as follows: low recycling households, 12.9% (ranked second), medium recycling households, 11.0% (ranked fourth), and high recycling households, 12.3% (ranked fourth). Although there is a difference in the ranking which indicates priority, the percentage responses are similar and show that a lack of knowledge is perceived as an important reason why people do not recycle by all recycling sub-groups. This is in line with findings by Clarke and Maantay [55] who recorded the lack of knowledge of what is recyclable in both areas with low and high participation in recycling initiatives and, thus, suggests that both recycling and non-recycling households perceive a lack of knowledge as a barrier to recycling.

With *not bothered* (9.1%) ranked fifth, and *not responsible* and *it makes no difference* sharing the sixth rank (8.6%), the high recycling households appear to be very aware that being bothered, taking responsibility for recycling in the household, and an understanding that every household can contribute is needed to activate and improve recycling behavior. *It makes no difference* is ranked sixth by sub-groups. Although not among the first five, this factor (*it makes no difference*) attracted more than 9% of all the recycling household responses. Perceptions that a household's recycling does not make a difference has the potential to be turned around with well-targeted communications to improve recycling behavior. The difference in the results between the recycling household sub-groups shows how people's perceptions could change once they become involved in and have more experience in household recycling.

What stands out in the comparison between the sub-groups is the small difference of seven percentage points (13.2% − 6.2% = 7.0%) between the responses of the lowest and the highest ranked factors of the low recycling households when compared to more than 12 percentage points (16.1% − 3.7% = 12.4%) of the high recycling households. The group of medium recyclers is in-between the high and low recycling households with 9.5 percentage points (15.4% – 5.9% = 9.5%). This suggests that low recycling households find all 10 options more relevant as barriers to their recycling behavior and more so than the high recycling households. It also suggests that dedicated recycling households have managed to overcome these barriers that still prevent low recycling households to recycle more and do not perceive these as barriers to household recycling anymore.

#### *4.4. Demographic Variables and Perceived Barriers to Recycling*

Considering the socio-demographics variables (Tables A1–A9 in Appendix C), analysis of the selected three main reasons why people do not recycle show that the same five factors known as *no time*, *insufficient space*, *dirty and untidiness*, *lack of knowledge*, and *facilities inconvenient* are selected the most. However, these five factors are not always in the same order of priority as the responses from the total sample group (as shown in Table 4) and there are a few exceptions where one of these five is replaced by another factor. While the data sugges<sup>t</sup> that there is no major difference in perceptions about the reasons why people do not recycle, the largest deviations from the all respondents' order of priority are highlighted below.


*no curbside service* has a higher priority (ranked third). Being a representative sample, BLACK respondents makes up the largest percentage and thus dominate the order of priority of all the respondents.

• Occupation group (Table A9): The perception among those with a professional occupation is that *lack of knowledge* and *not bothered* are major factors that prevent people from recycling (both ranked third). Among the executives and managers, *lack of knowledge* appears to be less of an issue (ranked sixth) but *facilities inconvenient* and *no curbside service* have higher priority (ranked third and fourth, respectively). The semi-skilled are more concerned about *makes no difference* (ranked fifth). Among the unskilled respondents, on the ranking list, *lack of knowledge* shares the first place with *no time*. The factor *not responsible* also has higher priority (ranked fifth). The self-employed perceive *insufficient space* as less of a concern (ranked seventh) while *dirty and untidy* (ranked first) and *no curbside service* has higher priority (ranked fourth).

Given the rate of urbanization, the priority of *lack of knowledge* among those living in flats, informal housing structures, and in informal areas is an important finding. In addition, the data sugges<sup>t</sup> that *not bothered* and *it makes no difference* as well as *not responsible* are factors that need attention among the unschooled and those with some primary school education. Oke and Kruijsen emphasize the need for the right kind of information [56], i.e., why it is important to recycle and why households should recycle in addition to the what, how, when, and where messages. The challenge would be to find alternative ways of communicating with the illiterate to ge<sup>t</sup> these messages across.

The *no time* factor is ranked the highest among the respondents working full-time and part-time. Kaciak and Kushner highlights the fact that inconvenience is a major barrier to recycling and that it has the ability to override the best personal intentions to recycle [44]. Therefore, in the absence of a street collection service and given the importance of time, the location and maintenance of recycling centers are crucial to encourage continued household recycling.

#### **5. Conclusions and Recommendations**

*No time* stands out as the one most important reason why people do not recycle, but analysis of the selected three most important reasons of the quantitative survey results show that (i) *insufficient space*, (ii) *no time*, (iii) the *dirty and untidiness* associated with recycling, (iv) *lack of knowledge*, and (v) *inconvenient recycling facilities* are the main reasons why people do not recycle. Being a representative sample of the South African urban population, the large percentage of non-recycling households dominates the results. Improved and more convenient services such as regular curbside collections might encourage low recyclers to recycle more while improved services could also be a solution for both the time and space problem that households currently either experience or envision to experience should they recycle.

The uniqueness of this study lies in the sample being representative of the South African population residing in large urban areas. Although desirability bias in answering the behavioral questions is possible, the chance of overrepresentation of recycling households is small in relation to compulsory postal or on-line surveys that focus on recycling behavior.

In the South African urban setting, household recycling is mostly voluntary and is even more so in rural areas. This empirical study highlights reasons why people do not recycle, which are useful for decision-making in South Africa. The fact that the findings of this study are in line with the findings from similar international studies underscores the value of this research for other countries especially developing countries that want to improve recycling participation.

The implication for developing countries is that recycling services as well as communications towards more knowledge will have to improve to ge<sup>t</sup> the buy-in from a larger percentage of the population to start recycling or to recycle more than they currently do. Knowledge about what is recyclable and the convenience of recycling facilities are important factors among the youth, the unemployed, and those in the informal urban areas. Thus, the waste sector has grea<sup>t</sup> potential to play a role towards job creation and poverty alleviation through recycling initiatives among the

youth and the unemployed and especially in the informal urban areas. Communications for the semi-skilled and unskilled as well as the unschooled and semi-schooled should focus on why it is important to recycle —that recycling can make a difference—and why it is important to care and to take responsibility for recycling.

Equality in waste recycling services is still something to strive for in South Africa. Until such time that all households have access to recycling services of comparable convenience, it is and will remain difficult to compare recycling behavior among South Africans, between South Africa and other developing countries, and between South Africa and countries with mature recycling services. Since caution should be taken to compare results between studies with varying recycling scheme maturity [14], caution should also be taken to implement results and conclusions from developed countries and results in developing countries.

It is recommended that this quantitative study is repeated in 2020 to ascertain any change in recycling behavior and to also expand the survey to include rural towns to determine whether similar perceptions about why people from South Africa do not recycle exist in the smaller centra. Expanding the list of factors would be an improvement to the survey. However, there is a trade-off between functionality and length of the list of factors to choose from.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Acknowledgments:** This study forms part of a more comprehensive study to determine the baseline recycling behavior of households in South Africa and was funded by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The author would like to thank CSIR colleagues Linda Godfrey, Richard Meissner, and Suzan Oelofse who reviewed an earlier version and the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions, which helped to improve the quality of this paper.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author has no vested interest in this research.
