Encore: Unexpected outcome in bagging area

Chris Hatzis
Eavesdrop on experts … a podcast about stories of inspiration and insights.
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I’m Chris Hatzis. Let’s eavesdrop on experts and see how these 21st century explorers are changing the world … one lecture, one experiment, one interview, at a time.

Ahh the sweet sound and smell of coffee being ground at a cafe….
Now, I hate to bring the mood down, but we humans have a bad habit of creating waste and clogging up the planet. For example, experts are trying to help us break the plastic bags habit. In fact, several councils in Australia, and all over the world, have already banned them. And, since we’re in a cafe... if you thought your disposable coffee cup was recyclable… think again. There is a reason why we need more Keep Cup use.

Wouter Poortinga is a Professor of Environmental Psychology at the Welsh School of Architecture and the School of Psychology at Cardiff University. Professor Poortinga is visiting the University of Melbourne to talk plastic bag charges, habit disruption and spill-over effects.
He describes himself as…..

Wouter Poortinga
I’m an Environmental Psychologist. What I would like to see is that we just have the same society as we have now but with far less waste so to see where we can reduce waste where possible without affecting people, their lifestyle in a very direct way.

Chris Hatzis
Steve Grimwade is our reporter today…. he’s out to explore the terrain where architecture, the environment and psychology collide. He met with Wouter for a coffee …. and I’ve loaned him my Keep Cup especially for the occasion...

Steve Grimwade 
I’m interested in the idea that there's an intersection between architecture and psychology but I don't know necessarily what it means at that intersection. Can you describe it further?

Wouter Poortinga
Well the idea behind environmental psychology is that the environment matters for who we are and what we do. If you're looking at a particular building the way it is built, the way it is designed will determine how we feel but also how we behave.

Steve Grimwade 
What's your background? Are you an architect by trade? Are you a psychologist?

Wouter Poortinga
I'm a psychologist by training but I also did environmental sciences so I combined psychology with environmental studies.

Steve Grimwade 
When people think of environmental psychology what do they think you do? Are there misconceptions or misapprehensions about what you do?

Wouter Poortinga
Well there's always misconceptions when you say that you're doing psychology. When you say you're a psychologist they always think you can see what people are thinking. It's not the kind of psychology that I do. I'm looking at the role of the environment both ways actually so how does the environment determine how we feel, how we think but also what we do, how we behave, how does that impact on the environment?

Steve Grimwade 
What was it as either a student or as an early researcher that actually led to your interest or was it earlier? Was there a person, a book, a happening?

Wouter Poortinga
I still remember very clearly when I made a decision that I wanted to be an environmental psychologist and it was an old professor so it was Charles Flack who had a course on environment and behaviour and it was the first time that I thought 'well actually I can do something useful with psychology, I can apply it and I can make a difference in the world.

Chris Hatzis
Nice work, Professor. Now, we’ve all had lecturers and professors in our past who have inspired us. Clearly, Wouter is no exception. Thanks to Charles Flack and all the other inspirational educators everywhere. We do pay attention, and we love your work.

Steve Grimwade 
I'm sure any of the psychologists out there will not take offence that you can now actually apply that to the world. I'm sure they do too. If you went back to Charles Flack this time and you thought about where you are now, what changes have been occurring in the field over that period?

Wouter Poortinga
The field has grown much, much bigger than it was then in the mid-1990s. In the mid-1990s there were only a few environmental psychologists at the time. Now there's a very big community in the Netherlands, in Germany and Sweden but also here in Australia. It's an established field now.

Steve Grimwade 
It also sounds if you're talking about the 1990s that it still gives you the opportunity to be a pioneer. Is that true?

Wouter Poortinga
I have to say that at the time I did feel like a pioneer. Perhaps not as Charles Flack or the people I was working with. They were at it before I was. I was their student. But it felt new and it felt exciting so yeah, it felt like pioneering.

Steve Grimwade 
What areas now are still open that haven't been discovered yet? Are there areas that you can see that we need to open the door on?

Wouter Poortinga
I would say how psychology in general and environmental psychology in particular need to change is to take account of other disciplines that also have something to say about human environment interaction. I'm thinking about sociology for example or geography or political sciences or environmental studies. Try to collaborate more with other disciplines to help make this a better world.

Steve Grimwade 
The word multidisciplinary isn't a word of the past. It is still necessary.

Wouter Poortinga
It is still very much the future. There is multidisciplinary but interdisciplinary research is still far away. I think we need to make much more of an effort to achieve that.

Steve Grimwade 
Let's talk a little bit about your recent research from Wales, England and across the UK on the success of the introduction of a charge on plastic bags, those bags previously given to consumers free at retail outlets the world over.

Wouter Poortinga
Yeah.

Steve Grimwade 
I guess I'm going to open the door to what did the research tell you?

Wouter Poortinga
The research shows that it works.

Steve Grimwade 
End of interview. We're done now…….

Wouter Poortinga
That's it. No, it was hugely successful. It was introduced over the past five years. Wales was the first country in the UK that introduced it in 2011, followed by Northern Ireland in 2013, Scotland in 2014 and England was the final country to introduce it in 2015. In all four countries you saw a reduction of plastic bag usage between 70 and 90 per cent so it's very, very successful.

Steve Grimwade 
They're extraordinary figures and I'm going to ask you just a very out there question. Can you actually give me the volume of plastic we're talking about?

Wouter Poortinga
We're talking about 80 million bags a year in UK supermarkets alone before the charge was introduced. I think if I'm correct that's 70,000 tons a year.

Steve Grimwade
It's extraordinary, isn't it?

Wouter Poortinga
Yeah, that's a lot.

Steve Grimwade 
I want to be flippant and laugh and say think of all the dolphins saved, et cetera.

Wouter Poortinga
Yeah.

Steve Grimwade 
But you know what? It's not something to be flippant about because these bags I expect and I don't know but I expect they end up outdoors in the environment in some way.

Wouter Poortinga
Yeah, there's two ways of looking at plastic bags. First of all is it a waste issue? Yeah, it is a waste issue but it won't solve the problems with household waste. We're producing much, much more. If you're looking at the overall amount of waste plastic bags only constitutes about one per cent. A plastic bag charge won't solve that. We need to do much, much more but there's also the littering aspect of it. A lot of plastic bags, they end up in the environment and they can either block drains or things like that or they can strangle wildlife and that is a big issue.

Steve Grimwade 
Given that we're talking about one per cent of the waste problem, how does this research, or how can you see this research, translating into other areas?

Wouter Poortinga
I think what's important about the plastic bag charge is that it has shown that it works. Only a charge of five pence can reduce plastic bag usage between 80 and 90 per cent. It's only five pence. Perhaps we should do this with other waste sources as well, something like coffee cups or plastic water bottles or packaging or anything like that. I see it as a start and I would like to see much, much more.

Steve Grimwade 
I'll come back to coffee cups but I'm interested in some of your research which said the greatest thing that this did was that it changed behaviour and it changed behaviour incredibly quickly.

Wouter Poortinga
Yeah.

Steve Grimwade 
Within a month I think.

Wouter Poortinga
Yeah.

Steve Grimwade 
The percentage of people that were prepared to actually use a non-disposable bag jumped - or acceptance of the scheme jumped within a month of usage.

Wouter Poortinga
Yeah.

Steve Grimwade 
And people were very supportive of this environmental measure as well as others. Is that correct?

Wouter Poortinga
Yes, that's correct. The change was almost overnight and reason why it happened is because it's very easy to adapt to. It's not a big change to bring your own bag to the supermarket. It's just you have to remember it and some people had a bit of trouble with that in the first few weeks but it's very easy to do and once you've got it ingrained in your daily routine you'll forget about it. You've adapted to it.

Steve Grimwade 
Do you think there's a contextual difference in what you can do to achieve change with plastic bags versus coffee cups? Because if I have to now bring a coffee cup from my work to the café or I have one on me at all times whereas with a plastic bag I can have a non-disposable bag in my car at all times.

Wouter Poortinga
Well first of all the important thing with coffee cups is that it's made of paper so a lot of people think you can recycle coffee cups but you can't.

Steve Grimwade 
Oh god, I've done so much damage to the environment already. Sorry.

Wouter Poortinga
There's wax or there's a little line of plastic so you can't recycle. It's very difficult to recycle - to separate those different materials. I think there should be much more awareness that it's actually not a good option. The question of yours, I think the context is very, very different. The five pence charge worked really well with plastic bags but that is because you can adapt to it quite easily. You can bring your own bag but not a lot of people have their coffee cup with them. It will constitute a much, much bigger change. I don't think a charge will necessarily work as well with coffee cups as it did with plastic bags.

Steve Grimwade 
Were there any particular surprises in your research that stood out for you?

Wouter Poortinga
Well we already talked about it. We were surprised by the change; how rapid the change was. It was almost overnight that it worked so we were quite surprised by that. We thought people would adapt more slowly to it. There were several reasons for that because we thought it wouldn't be successful in England as it was in Wales and Scotland for example. What we were also surprised about, pleasantly surprised about, is that the plastic bag charge made people think about waste much more. It was like a catalyst to think about waste and recycling.

Chris Hatzis
Well said, Professor… and that's what it's all about isn't it? These measures can be a catalyst to get us thinking about the way we live our lives, and the changes we can make in our daily or weekly routines to make a difference.

Steve Grimwade 
Do you think your work and your research is values driven and/or politicised in any way?

Wouter Poortinga
This research could be politicised as any research on the environment. We try to take an as value-free position as possible. What we wanted to show with this research was whether it works or not and how does it work. That was why we set up the research. It wasn't an advocacy research or anything like that. We wanted to see whether it worked or not.

Steve Grimwade 
Can I ask you a question on politics then?

Wouter Poortinga
Yeah, sure.

Steve Grimwade 
What do you think - in your experience in the UK what were the barriers to actually putting a charge on plastic bags? I guess they are - well I foresee them as being political.

Wouter Poortinga
Well there was surprisingly little opposition to the charge. When it was introduced in Wales in 2011 a majority was already in favour of a charge - of the general public. About 50 per cent was in support of the plastic bag charge. It was the same in England when it was introduced in 2015. Also, retailers were quite positive about the charge. There wasn't a lot of opposition from retailers that were against the charge. You both had public and retailers on the same side. In that sense, it wasn't that politicised and it was relatively easy to introduce.

Steve Grimwade 
Much of your work seems to look into how we change habits. Indeed, you've written previously 'our research has shown that habits can override the best of our intentions.'

Wouter Poortinga
Yeah.

Steve Grimwade 
How hard is it to break habits and how can our environments or changes to our environment make it easier to forge new habits?

Wouter Poortinga
I would say it's both easy and difficult to change habits. As we've shown with this research only five pence can change a habit of taking a plastic bag from the till at a supermarket. Other behaviours or other habits like driving to work in your car, they are much, much difficult to address. Other research has shown that when you move house for example, when you disrupt the context in which you performed the behaviour you can break that habit. That is also what colleagues of mine have shown at Bath University.

If you're looking at people for transport choices a lot of people they drive to work. Even if they're willing to change their behaviour they are stuck in this routine of driving to work. You get up, you get in your car and you drive to work.

There's a mismatch between your values and your behaviour. When you move house you can reconsider your behaviour or your daily routine. You can see that when people move house that they also change their habits. The people who are more environmentally concerned, they tend to change their behaviour at the moment they change house.

Steve Grimwade 
Your research - it provides insights to behaviour change that's useful for policy makers, for program designers and advocacy groups.

Wouter Poortinga
Yeah.

Steve Grimwade 
Going forward what do you want to activate in society?

Wouter Poortinga
What I can see in society at the moment is that we're producing an awful lot of waste that in my view is not necessary. What I would like to see is that we just have the same society as we have now but with far less waste so try to cut out the waste wherever possible. I think that is also something that I would like to do in the next five years with my research, to see where we can reduce waste where possible without affecting people, their lifestyle in a very direct way.

Steve Grimwade 
Finally, I'm interested to know what was some good advice that you were given early on and what's some advice that you like to pass on to other students and researchers?

Wouter Poortinga
What I always find important in research is try to engage with people, talk to them. Don't just do research in the lab but talk to people, try to understand people, their day-to-day lives and find out why people behave in a certain way. If you talk to people directly you can often see why people react as they do.

Steve Grimwade 
Professor Wouter Poortinga, it's been a delight to talk to you. Thanks for visiting Australia and we look forward to seeing the rest of your work in years to come.

Wouter Poortinga
Thanks very much.

Chris Hatzis
There goes the Professor, saving the world one hessian bag and a Keep Cup at a time. Thanks to Wouter Poortinga, Professor of Environmental Psychology at the Welsh School of Architecture and the School of Psychology at Cardiff University. And thanks to our reporter on the ground, Steve Grimwade. I am happy to say he is a Keep Cup convert.

Eavesdrop on Experts - stories of inspiration and Insights - is a production of the University of Melbourne, Australia

This episode was recorded on Feb 8, 2017.

Recording by Gavin Nebauer, co-production by Andi Horvath, production assistance by Claudia Hooper and Cecilia Robinson

I’m Chris Hatzis, Producer and Editor. Join me again next time for another Eavesdrop On Experts.