Encouraging foodwaste recycling on highway stops

Client: Upcycle, Vinci Autoroutes

Year: 2023

Project Background:

A project in collaboration with Upcycle, a French composting specialist, for Vinci Autoroutes, a French company managing highway stops in France. Vinci Autoroutes was preparing to equip their stops with food waste bins and wanted to increase the chances of success of the deployment.

Challenge:

Getting highway users to (correctly) dispose of their food waste.

Approach:

• Literature review into barriers to (correct) recycling - including food recycling - in public spaces.

• Review of Vinci Autorutes data into recycling on highway stops.

• Quantitative research with Vinci Autoroutes users.

• Ethnography and qualitative research on Vinci Autoroutes' highway stops.

• Application of Behaviour Change Wheel and Behaviour Change Techniques v1.

What we found:

• Car drivers and passengers that stop on highway stops are in an unfamiliar environment and are pressed for time. This impacts their ability to recognise which bin is for which type of rubish and to dispose of their rubbish correctly.

• They also have hard time managing food waste in their car/ during their journey. Oftentimes, while in the car, they put all their rubbish together into a plastic bag and dispose of it in a general bin upon arriving at a highway stop. 

Results:

A set of recommendations regarding bins, signage, communication and additional tools to manage food waste in the car/ on the way.