02 Mar 3 Nudge Solutions for the Bottles of Water Waste-Problem in Schools
by Niyati Mehta and Chronis Lalas
Current Problem
An issue that arises globally in many events -like weddings and parties- or servises -like offices and schools- is that people/guests tend to throw their bottles of water in the trash when they haven’t even consumed the water.
>When there’s scarcity of drinkable water across the globe, it would be better such issues to be reduced.
>Nudging could have a positive impact to peoples behavior and make them more concerned and create sustainable habits in order to drive a win-win-win situation about themselves (personal finance), people in need (sustainable habits lead to sustainable solutions) and the environment (edible water shortage).
Let’s dive into some 3 Nudge solutions for school classrooms:
Nudge Solutions
1) Place plants inside the classroom
- Pour the remaining water of the bottles in the flowers.
- A combined solution of watering the plants and having fun could be a competition between classes about which class has the most “alive” and beautiful plants or garden.
2) Use recycle bins about bottles and caps.
- In order to recycle you have to pour the water first, thus in that way students will have one more reason to water the plants.
- Creation of recycled-stuff games and constructions.
Example1: Some schools in Greece gather the caps of the bottles in a recycle box and when they reach a specific amount, they give them in an organization which trades them with a wheelchair for a child in need.
Example2: Recycling and Garbage games from around the world.
3) Refill of the bottles with tap water from the schools facilities instead of buying and using a new one.
Example1: Use of a special bottle; one that does not go bad after some use. Like https://dopper.com/
Example2: Another suggested Nudge about tap water from our team was one of the last year’s posts.
Food for Thought
An issue that arises is that teachers are usually the ones that need to be nudged in order to take action. Because they tend not to care and they don’t have a strong motive to do it. While students follow their example and advice in case their teachers create such a water waste project.
Hence, the question here is:
How could we nudge teachers to take action?
Even if you are a teacher or not, send us any possible suggestion that could help us generate a nudge which aims at teachers behavior and motivation.