Want Consumers to Recycle In-Store? Show Them How.

In a recent study of grocery shoppers, researchers discovered that strategically placed in-store signage with How2Recycle educational messages increased awareness of store drop-off recycling for flexible packaging.

Package InSight by Quad and GreenBlue jointly conducted the research at Package InSight’s retail lab in Greenville, SC. The lab simulated a grocery-shopping environment, with pouches of granola as the test product.

A study report in the peer-reviewed journal Sustainability provides a detailed description of the research and its results. To start, the researchers recruited 67 study participants and divided them into two groups.

For Group A, no in-store recycling signage was used. For Group B, horizontal shelf strips and vertical directional signs, aka aisle invaders, were placed near the granola pouches. The signs urged consumers to check packaging for the How2Recycle label and encouraged them to recycle flexible packaging in a store drop-off bin.

The drop-off bin, with recycling messages printed on its panels, faced the entrance of the store environment and was accessible to both groups.

Planograms for granola and more.

The experimental design included a granola planogram as the target shopping category, as well as planograms for other products, to resemble real-life shopping.

The “planogram of granola pouches had a few store drop off pouches included, but most were nonrecyclable or had no recycling instruction,” says Shannon Anderson, director of client research at Package InSight by Quad.

“The goal was not necessarily to push them towards one brand or another, but to see if by calling out the existence of How2Recycle and store drop-off at shelf with signage, we could increase visual attention on the store drop-off bin they would pass as they left the store and measure some increased awareness in the post-shopping qualitative survey,” Anderson adds.

To quantify visual attention, the researchers fitted participants with Tobii eye-tracking glasses, which recorded their eye movements as they shopped.

Metrics included:

Results and suggestions.

Analysis of the eye-tracking data showed that Group B shoppers — those exposed to signs in the granola shopping section — had more attention on and awareness of store drop-off recycling vs. those who did not see the signs.=

This suggests that strategic sign placement “influences consumer behavior and awareness in the context of recycling initiatives within retail environments,” the report states.

Among the three messaging media — store drop-off bin, shelf strips, and aisle invaders — the bins performed the best of the three media vis-à-vis TTFF, with a measurement of 0.12 seconds.

The shelf strips drew shoppers’ attention for the greatest length of time, with TFD of 1.72 seconds, and they also had the highest FC, with a measurement of 5.91 seconds. The aisle invaders had the lowest performance of all the media on the three eye-tracking metrics.

“In the results for the number of people who had noticed each type of signage, the shelf strips were noticed by most participants, demonstrating a 60.6% fixation compared to the aisle invaders,” the report notes.

The research results point to the importance of thoughtfully located in-store signage in encouraging shopper engagement with recycling programs and promoting sustainability generally.

According to the study report, clear, informative in-store signage “can effectively communicate the benefits of recycling programs, educate consumers about recyclable products like plastic bags, and increase awareness of store drop-off bins.”

It concludes, “Overall, these findings highlight the essential role of signage in retail settings for driving a positive environmental impact and improving the overall customer experience.”