“This Is Public Health: Recycling Counts!” Description of a Pilot Health Communications Campaign

This paper describes the development, implementation, and evaluation of a pilot recycling campaign. The goal of the campaign was to increase people’s awareness and knowledge about recycling and the link between a healthy environment and the public’s health. A total of 258 individuals attended campaign week events and completed an initial survey. Results identified inconvenience of recycling facility locations as a key barrier to recycling. Post-campaign survey results revealed increased recycling of paper, plastic, glass, and cans (p < 0.05). The majority of participants “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that as a result of campaign messages they had greater awareness about recycling (88.4%) and their recycling efforts increased (61.6%).