From us for you

Study on the Swiss population’s stance on dealing with disused electrical or electronic appliances

This is how the Swiss population ticks

Can a remote control be thrown away with household waste if the batteries are removed first? Can broken electrical or electronic appliances be taken to the grocery store around the corner? Do people know where the nearest recycling centre is? How often does the average Swiss individual go there and for what purpose?

We wanted to know how well informed people in Switzerland are about the major environmental benefits of correctly disposing of electronic waste – what are their thoughts and approaches regarding this matter? For our 30th anniversary, we commissioned the University of Applied Psychology at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) to take a closer look at recycling behaviour in the context of disused electrical and electronic appliances in Swiss private households.

A two-stage study was carried out. As a first step, the topic was explored openly though interviews to gain a deeper understanding. Based on the acquired knowledge, a quantitative, representative survey was carried out in the form of a questionnaire as the second step. It was thereby possible to review and quantify the insights gained from phase 1.

The over 1,000 study participants were asked a wide variety of questions relating to the five subject areas of “knowledge and awareness”, “handling discarded electrical or electronic appliances”, “attitude towards recycling and disposal options”, “barriers and motivation” and “circular economy”. The survey yielded some surprising results.

For example, it was found that eRecycling is considered common knowledge and good manners in Switzerland. SENS eRecycling, on the other hand, is unknown to most. By contrast, collection points for disposing of disused electrical or electronic appliances are very well known. However, many did not know that disposal is also possible in specialist and retail trade. The Swiss are exemplary when it comes to recycling: they state that they always recycle consistently. However, it was found that not every electrical or electronic appliance is identified as such – especially in the case of smaller everyday objects such as torches or wristwatches. When it comes to such appliances in particular, the benefit is not always recognised: Is it even worth recycling such a small appliance with so much plastic?

A favourable sign is that the population has a positive attitude towards recycling in and of itself, but also towards eRecycling. They feel that they share responsibility and believe that those around them see things in the same way. However, there is still scepticism about what happens to the electrical or electronic appliances once they have been handed in at the collection point or specialist and retail shops. Are they actually recycled in Switzerland or is everything exported to Africa? The participants were not quite sure about this.

Seven recommendations for action were derived from these interesting results:

1. Build up knowledge and thereby establish certitude
2. Create salience for the topic of eRecycling and ReUse
3. Create a consistent link between eRecycling and environmental protection
4. Make social standards visible
5. Provide impulses for sorting
6. Establish accessible communication
7. Create clear and uniform rules

We have taken these recommendations for action to heart and have already implemented them in our communication. Who knows, you may even recognise a recommendation for action here or there this year.

Black Friday webinar

A brief and compact summary of our study

Black Friday is all about consumption in Switzerland too. We wanted to counteract this somewhat and invited our partners to shed light on the other side of consumption – namely when an electrical or electronic appliance has had its day. To this end, we conducted a webinar in cooperation with FHNW.

The results of this representative study were presented by Anne Herrmann, Professor of Business Psychology and Head of the Institute for Market Supply and Consumer Decision-Making at FHNW, fittingly during a public webinar on Black Friday. Sophia Sommer led the webinar and the subsequent Q&A session – a familiar face to many, as she can often be seen in our SENS films. Around 50 viewers followed the webinar live, enjoyed animated discussions and asked interesting questions. In the meantime, the recording has been viewed over 200 times and the great amount of follow-up questions and feedback also demonstrate the success of the webinar.

Did you miss the webinar? No problem. You can watch a recording of it on our YouTube channel.

The “Excuses” campaign

Too valuable for cheap excuses!

The bag was too full already. It was cold and rainy. I was under a lot of pressure at the time. Excuses! We all tend to resort to them when we can’t be bothered to dispose of an electrical or electronic appliance properly. In our campaign, we took a closer look at the most popular recycling excuses. Our conclusion: even the smartest excuse is not nearly as clever as Switzerland’s eRecycling system.

On average, there are about 70 electrical or electronic appliances in a Swiss household. They don’t all still work, but many people find it difficult to admit that some appliances are definitely no longer needed. The study we commissioned on the recycling behaviour of the population showed that the disposal of the appliances is often perceived as a loss and that the broken appliances first end up in the basement as a result. This means that valuable raw materials that we could recover through recycling are wasted.

In our annual campaign, we gave the Swiss population a say. We wanted to know exactly what makes someone dispose of an electrical or electronic appliance properly – or not. In a cross-media campaign, we tracked down the most creative excuses, discussed the advantages of using appliances sustainably and, by looking into the recycling process, built up a great deal of knowledge about valuable raw materials and how to recover them.