Consumers Prefer Reverse Vending Machines For Bottle Recycling

INCOM surveyed 1,200 bottle bill holders to determine how, what and where people recycle and their concerns about environmental issues.

The survey revealed that the number one recycled material was used beverage containers (17% of respondents recycled), followed by plastic (16%), cardboard (15%), glass (15%) and paper (14%) . Other key findings show that 62% of respondents redeemed their beverage containers for a deposit.

reverse vending machines

The survey also explored respondents' understanding of container storage systems and their concerns about environmental issues. Key findings include

High deposit knowledge, but wishful recycling

● The survey found an almost even split between where consumers redeem their containers, between reverse vending machines/bottle redemption centers and home/ curbside pickup. 53% of respondents redeem their bottles and cans at reverse vending machines.

● 89.5% of respondents believe that all items collected by reverse vending machines are recycled, while 73.2% believe that all items collected curbside are recycled. In fact, 100% of containers redeemed at reverse vending machines were recycled into new packaging, while approximately 50% of containers collected via single-stream curbside were recycled.

● In areas with deposit programs, 86% of respondents were aware of a container deposit program in their area and 14% were unsure if their area had a container deposit program.

Doing something, not making money, is the key driver

● 23.7% said they recycle because it's good for the planet; 23.3% recycle because it's the right thing to do; 19.5% recycle because it makes them feel good; and 19% do so to redeem their deposits.

● The top three environmental concerns of today's consumers are air quality (19.4%), climate change (19.1%) and litter (12.4%)

● When it comes to addressing environmental issues, 60 percent of respondents believe world leaders are not doing enough and 62 percent believe national leaders are not doing enough.

● Sixty-nine percent of respondents believe that environmental issues affect them personally, but only 48% consider themselves to be environmentalists.

● Most respondents believe they recycle enough, but the main reason they do not recycle "as much as possible" is forgetfulness (32%), far outweighing not knowing what can and cannot be recycled (21%) and the inconvenience of recycling (16%). Only 0.02% of respondents said they did not care about recycling.

These findings are helpful to INCOM as we consider how to share the many benefits of clean deposit return recycling with consumers. Consumers share with us their belief that recycling serves a larger societal purpose and that the incentive to recycle containers is a motivator for success.