Academic Partner for Recycling Project

Keep America Beautiful, a national non-profit focusing on recycling, litter and community greening, is seeking an academic partner/PhD candidate to help build the recycling industrys body of knowledge regarding recycling participation through long-term behavior change.

- We know the main barrier to recycling is convenience.
- We know that almost 60% of people are only sometimes recyclers.
- We know that national recycling rates have stagnated at around 35%.

Keep America Beautiful wants to help move the needle. We have partners on the ground that can help baseline recycling data, implement an intervention, track recycling rates and report back. We need YOU!

- An academic partner to help build the research methodology.
- Someone to advice KAB and our grassroots partners on the who, what, when, where and how (or product, price, place and promotion).
- Experience in statistical analysis and utilizing data sets.

Keep America Beautiful is actively working to fundraise for these projects that include ideas such as:
- What impact does a public commitment have on recycling behavior? How can we track its use, benefits and long-term effects?
- How can we utilize competitions and gamification to motivate people to recycle?
- What effects will an Ad Council public service announcement have on long-term behavior change?
- What type of recycling bin works best? What color should it be? What should the decal say? How can it best draw attention, yet quickly and easily educate someone about what should go in it?

If one or more of these ideas interest you, please contact Kelley Dennings, Director of Recycling Programs with Keep America Beautiful at [email protected] or 919-355-8102.


Kelley Dennings
United States