4.0 Public Education and Awareness

Issue

Owners and managers identified public education as a major issue. One manager stated that, “The customers would have to be won over and trained to make [source separation] work and this would take about six months. It would have to be consistently applied to work properly, as well.” Another manager emphasized the need for consistency, “If we were the only [restaurant] doing it, then the customers would not be used to it. But if [every restaurant] were doing it, then people would get used to it.”

Current Situation

Public education was a component of the most successful examples of customer-based source separation in the province. In the Bridgewater Mall, a public education campaign was conducted well in advance of the official “launch” of the new containers. Cardboard tents were placed on tables, staff wore buttons and there were signs proclaiming that the mall was “going green.” In addition, advertisements were placed in local papers. Regular customers were also kept aware of the program’s existence. Many residents of the South Shore identify themselves as “leaders in the province” in the area of waste diversion. This makes them proud of the success of the program and to a degree, further encourages their source separation efforts. It seems to be one of the factors that motivates them to take a little extra time to sort appropriately.

Recommendations

4.1 Public Education Campaign

Source separation in quick-service restaurants should be promoted through general public education and in-store promotions, such as table tents, posters and buttons. A media campaign could be developed to support source separation (newspapers, radio, television). This campaign would highlight Nova Scotia’s success as a world-leader in solid waste-resource management and provide goals for the future, including expanding source separation to every public sector venue.

A public education campaign could also clarify some of the existing points of confusion, such as the existence of landfill bans and information about proper source separation techniques (i.e. what goes where) in quick-service restaurants. As well, the campaign could clarify variations between residential and quick-service restaurant waste streams, and quick-service restaurant source separation variations between regions.