Just to remind you, my definition of social marketing is marketing that seeks to persuade people to do things that benefit themselves and others, and uses scientific and social research to understand why they don’t.
So why do people put untreatable bits and pieces down the loo?
First it’s a habit. We have got used to living in sophisticated dwellings with clever plumbing and just tend to think anything we dispose of will be dealt with – by someone.
When we visit places where you are asked not to put anything other than paper down the loo, we find it hard to get out of the habit of chucking, at least to begin with.
Then it’s a lack of understanding. Do we know how long it takes for plastic sticks, wet wipes, nappies and so on to degrade? Sort of, but probably not in any detail, and again we tend to think that someone else will deal with it.
Then there’s the rather helpless feeling we get in the face of huge environmental problems: I know I shouldn’t do x or y, but what am I supposed to do instead?
Social marketers have learned that blanket instructions don’t work except in certain circumstances. When everyone is in the same boat, during a pandemic or a war for example, messages such as “Stay at home” mostly work, but are more effective if they’re accompanied by information to help people understand why they should. In the case of Covid, they were also accompanied by an emotional appeal, “Protect the NHS”.
Several water companies are already using a simple slogan that combines a prohibition with an alternative, positive action, such as “Don’t flush it. Bin it.”
I can’t help feeling that if more people saw, and smelt, the digusting product the sewage treatment works are left with and send to landfill, they might respond.
Here it is again, with Thames Water manager Karen Easterbrook who showed us round the plant:
In my next post, I’m going to look at a successful campaign to persuade women in Malawi to eat more eggs.