Possible Phases of a social and behavioural change campaign

Our fieldwork would suggest that many communities to date have gone through a something like a journey rather than a single initiative or an event. We have summarised this journey into three phases which you might find helpful for you to consider

• What is our starting point (or where are we up to)
• At what stage will we need to change our strategies and approaches to reflect the change in attitude, perceptions and the level of commitment by the community?
• What would be the most effective way to move the community forward in the next phase?

The following are the three broad phases we have observed - we emphasise these are not necessarily sequential and depend greatly on what is already happening in your community.

 1. Initiate /demonstrate that there are viable alternatives to plastic shopping bags ( community education phase)

• Encourage alternative ways to carry shopping
• Demonstrate by example
• Encourage groups to use bag sales as a fundraiser
• Identify and highlight retailers that have already taken action
• Communicate examples = local media, newsletters etc
• Measure alternative bag sales by retailers and others

2. Reduce number of bags being distributed in your area

• Encourage Reuse of alternative bags by shoppers – run an incentive program
• Training for Retail staff
• Introduce Voluntary Levy on plastic shopping bags- Goomalling Example

3. Increase retrieval of plastic bags from the community

• Encourage recycling of plastic bags
• Link recycling of plastic shopping bags to other recycling in the community
• Introduce strategies to reduce volume of plastic into waste stream
• Provide incentives like “bring back 10 plastic bags and get one alternative bag free” - Esperance Example 
• Measure number of bags being recycled

Monitoring Results

It is important to consider ways to measure progress in any successful project.

To measure reduction in plastic bags there are a range of options including:

• Reduction at source – collecting information from retailers about decrease in bags being purchased
• Reduction in households – a survey of a sample of houses before and after the campaign to measure the volume of bags retained in the household, and what happens to these bags
• Amount of Plastic Bags being recycled ( could be measured by weight)

Someone would need to take on the task of recording (or collating information) from the different initiatives that may spring from the campaign, so that the community can receive feedback.

There are a number of ways community can be keep engaged and informed through

• Community charts and barometers (a picture can tell a thousand words!)
• Regular updates in newsletters and newspapers
• Results of periodic surveys