An individual’s views toward electronics recycling tend to align closely with community attitudes toward recycling and reuse in general, a survey suggests.
Pew Research Center recently released results from a survey asking Americans about their community’s access to – and attitudes toward – recycling and reuse. A post-survey write-up by Pew also touches on recycling service access and the U.S. recycling rate.
Just under 50 percent of survey respondents said they live in communities with e-scrap recycling, and 18 percent said they don’t. The remainder said they weren’t sure or didn’t answer the question.
Of course, people don’t always use the recycling options available to them. According to the survey, 12 percent said people in their communities recycle electronics “most of the time,” 27 percent said people in their communities recycle electronics “some of the time” and 31 percent said people in their communities recycled electronics “not too often/never.”
But the survey also compared answers from people who said their communities are more or less recycling aware in general.
In communities where recycling is strongly encouraged, 62 percent of respondents said consumers recycle e-scrap at least some of the time. In areas that encourage but aren’t overly concerned about recycling, 38 percent said people recycle e-scrap at least some of the time. Lastly, in those areas that don’t really encourage recycling, only 15 percent said people recycle e-scrap least some of the time.
The online and mail-in survey of 1,534 adults took place in May and June. It was part of a larger survey focused on climate change, energy and the environment.
