Motivating Sustainable Recycling Practices Through Persuasive Technologies

Abstract

Despite the importance of recycling in the current and pressing context of preserving the environment, it is still not adopted by all of us. Several mobile tools have become available with the aim of sensitizing and motivating the population towards sustainable behaviours, with limitations in information availability and in integration with formal as well as informal sources. Moreover, persuasive characteristics, such as the use of gamification also need improvement towards raising competitiveness (and awareness) in the targeted community. The authors thus propose a mobile responsive gamified application for motivating recycling attitudes centred around an interactive map, supported by the curated data of one of the reference companies of the environmental sector in the region. The app includes collaborative persuasive elements as well as validation processes for crowdsourced content proposed by the community. The results of an evaluation process, with promising results, are described.