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Saturday, April 16, 2011

The Impact of Transient Populations on Recycling Behaviour

Timlett, R.E., and I.D. Williams. 2009. “The Impact of Transient Populations on Recycling Behaviour in a Densely Populated Urban Environment.” Resources, Conservation & Recycling 53 (9) (July): 498-506. doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2009.03.010.

The meaning of “transient” in this study is different than what we might think. Here “transient” means a population that moves frequently from residence to residence. It does NOT mean indigent. This study is on how transient populations might impact recycling in densely populated areas. It also comes from the United Kingdom.

In Portsmouth, a good portion of the households are quite transient for a variety of reasons from a high student and military population to unstable socio-economic pressures. Transience makes measuring a population such as this difficult. The usual method of measurement is by address instead of the individual or family.

What came from this is that longer term residents had the highest amount of recycling behavior because they are settled and have a sense of ownership whether they own or rent. Shorter term residents and the newly arrived had a lower recycling rate partly because they were less invested in the neighborhood, but mostly because they didn’t know their way around the rules and expectations and because they didn’t have enough bins or they had gone missing.

This is portion of the population that is easily overlooked. The United States is famously mobile, and so that is a necessary measurement. However, this aspect will not be measured during this study.

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