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Activities

A return to the research theme of enhanced resource circulation

Actions to increase the circulate of food waste in Minamisanriku Town

Introduction

Minamisanriku, a small rural town in the prefecture of Miyagi, opened a biogas facility in 2015 and began running a circulate program for household waste. In this system, food waste placed into designated containers is collected from local garbage collection points and transported to the biogas facility. The methane released in the fermentation of decomposing biowaste is recycled back into the community in the form of energy and liquid fertilizer. In 2018 when we were doing our research, the amount of biowaste collected was not as high as expected, and the challenge was to increase the amount of biowaste collected. We have begun using information and communications technology (ICT), behavioral economics, and psychology in activities aimed at solving this issue.

Data measurement

At the time of our participation, the information on waste collection was coarse-grained data. A paper-based management system was used, making it difficult to analyze the data. We have therefore begun developing and operating a system to generate digital data on the detailed aspects of waste collection at the level of the garbage collection points in cooperation with Rias Engineering, a waste collection company. With this system, it is possible for us to check what is happening in any district in great detail with fine-grained data. In addition, the effectiveness of the circulate program's activities can be verified using statistics.

Intervention design

After completing the platform for gathering data, we designed a community intervention to resolve the aforementioned issues in collecting food waste. In designing the intervention, we focused on gratitude. Psychology and behavioral economics suggest that gratitude promotes reciprocity and socially beneficial behavior (prosocial behavior), and we hypothesized that this effect could be leveraged to increase food waste collection.

Procedure

To verify the effectiveness of the designed intervention, we conducted an experiment in which residents received "gratitude feedback" at some garbage collection points. As a result, although the difference in the amount of garbage recovered overall was not statistically significant, we confirmed that the amount of food waste recovered did increase in the group that received feedback in the form of gratitude. In addition, in regards to whether or not the food waste was contaminated with foreign matter, it was confirmed that the group who received gratitude had a significantly lower amount of foreign matter mixed in with their food waste.

Winner of the "Best Nudge Award"

These experimental trials in Minamisanriku received the "Best Nudge Award" in the Best Nudge Award Contest in 2019, hosted by Japan's Ministry of the Environment. With this award, the town was recognized for the novelty, social significance, and appropriateness in behavioral science of the initiative.

Minamisanriku receives the "Good Life Award"

For their resource circulate system, Minamisanriku received the Minister of the Environment Award in the local community category at the 9th Good Life Award, sponsored by Japan's Ministry of the Environment. Minamisanriku received this award because its promotion of resource circulate using ICT, behavioral economics, and psychology were factors that differentiated it from other local communities that were also using biogas facilities to recycle resources such as food waste.

We continue to conduct various intervention experiments.

Currently, the amount of garbage recovered is less than expected, and we are promoting local resource circulation in cooperation with stakeholders in the town of Minamisanriku. For example, we are conducting experiments where behavioral economics is implemented in posters at stores selling bags for burnable trash. In addition, we are also preparing a system that utilizes ICT to aid the town in their circulate program.

Seeking co-creation partners
We are looking for partners to join and engage in co-creation to promote the circulate of resources.
Contact us for inquiries.