DENTON (UNT), Texas — At the University of North Texas, an ongoing research project is transforming the way Texans in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and across the state participate in recycling.

Collaborating with the Texas chapter of the Solid Waste Association of North America (TxSWANA), graduate students in UNT’s Department of Anthropology are conducting surveys and interviews with residents across the North Texas region to learn more about their recycling habits. The project, which began in 2022 as part of a master’s-level course, seeks to understand more about the underlying causes of recycling contamination.

“Contamination happens when food, liquid or hazardous chemicals on recycled materials keep them from being properly processed,” said Jamie Johnson, a senior lecturer in anthropology who led the project. “These items get sorted out and sent to our landfills. Those landfills are finite resources, so that’s a huge concern.”

Using landfills to capacity isn’t the only consequence of recycling contamination. Many materials reclamation facilities (MRF) use human labor for sorting recyclables. When contaminated materials — also known as “non-programmatic materials” — enter an MRF, human workers may be at risk of injury. Certain types of non-programmatic materials can even break machinery within the facilities.

Johnson, an applied urban anthropologist who specializes in studying the built environment and infrastructure, started the project in Fall 2022 as part of her graduate qualitative and ethnographic research methods course. The first year of the project focused on residents in multi-family homes such as apartment complexes, while the second and third years focused on single-family homes. The class gave special attention to homes on “contaminated routes,” or waste pickup routes that routinely produce high levels of contaminated recycling.

“We’re looking for what people know about recycling, both what happens at the municipal and state levels and how each household handles it,” Johnson said.

Each Fall semester, Johnson’s students recruit study participants and design research protocols for online surveys and in-person interviews. Participants answer questions about their recycling practices, which household members are responsible for recycling, and their general ideas and opinions about recycling.

Collected data is transcribed and analyzed using qualitative analysis software, allowing students to identify patterns and trends. The conclusions drawn from the data allow the class to make recommendations that can improve recycling education and practices — for example, eliminating “wishcycling” by clarifying the types of materials that can be recycled by different municipalities, since not all cities can recycle the same materials. The class’s research findings also prompted recommendations for cities and municipalities to support avowed recyclers by sending nuanced instructions through a variety of communication channels.

While reducing contamination lessens strain on the environment, infrastructure and sanitation workers, there are other advantages. Improved recycling methods lead to more efficient use of municipal budgets, directly benefiting surrounding communities. Increased awareness of proper recycling practices also can result in better sanitation outcomes for lower-income neighborhoods.

“With this project, students are actually learning about the cities where they live and how to really effect change,” Johnson said.

Brian Boerner (’86, ’95 M.S.), president of TxSWANA and director of Solid Waste for the city of Denton, says the project is helping citizens take direct action toward that positive change.

“This cutting-edge research focuses on how people receive and understand recycling information,” said Boerner, a UNT alumnus who holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and a master’s degree in environmental science. “By equipping those who manage recycling programs with this type of data, they’ll be able to steward better habits in their communities, resulting in the collection of cleaner, higher-quality recyclables.”

Boerner says the surveys and interviews conducted by the UNT team provide the city’s waste management program with valuable insights about the individuals who handle recycling in their households. By identifying their audience, the city is able to deliver messaging and information about proper recycling practices through targeted advertisements and educational materials.

Hannah Morrison, a third-year applied anthropology master’s student, worked on the project during its first year. Of the 10 North Texas cities that participated, the city of Dallas was assigned to Morrison, who also conducted interviews with Denton residents.

“I was active in making sure we did as much as possible to get surveys out to people. We also were doing one-on-one interviews with residents,” she said.

Morrison credits the project with improving her awareness of waste and recycling. It also inspired her to pursue an urban focus for her master’s thesis project, with Johnson as her advisor.

“Being part of a formal research project showed me this was something I could do,” Morrison said. “I’m strongly leaning toward a career in consulting, thanks to the TxSWANA project and my current thesis project.”