Identifying beliefs underlying home composting behaviours in the City of Whitehorse

The City of Whitehorse s 2011 Waste Management Plan outlines strategies and actions to be undertaken over the next five years such that, in 2016, 55 of municipal waste will be diverted from landfill. As part of the Plan, the Council hopes to apply several communication and regulatory tools that focus on facilitating behaviours that support this goal. One focal area is to influence more local residents to undertake composting behaviours at home. As the Council moves to increase the incentives to compost (as well as the disincentives not to), there is a need for research to better understand the reasons why residents do and don t compost at home, such that the Council can better facilitate the uptake of home composting behaviours. By understanding the beliefs of local residents related to home composting, the Council would avoid the risk of developing materials that might have little relevance to the beliefs of residents about such behaviours. To this end, the Council commissioned BehaviourWorks Australia at Monash University to conduct focus groups to elicit beliefs to guide the development of information, resources and strategies to more effectively influence the composting behaviours of residents in the City of Whitehorse.