In a nutshell, yes. A recent study conducted at UC Irvine found that if we have the option to recycle something, we’re more likely to use more of it and less likely to reuse or reduce.
In their study, “Recycling Gone Bad: When the Option to Recycle Increases Resource Consumption,” researchers Jesse R. Catlin and Yitong Wang conducted two simple experiments to prove their hypothesis – that the ability to recycle may lead to increased resource usage compared to when a recycling option is not available.
In the first experiment, participants were separated into two groups. Both groups were told to test a new brand of scissors using blank pieces of paper. One group had a recycling bin and trash bin in their room and the other group had only a trash bin. Participants were then instructed to cut a series of shapes out from the paper and then to take five minutes to evaluate the scissors in any way they deemed fit.
The group that had a recycling bin at in their room used more paper to test the scissors than the group without the bin. Continue reading