Nudging sustainable habits in Buenos Aires

This post is written by Natalia Herbst, Senior Advisor at Vice Presidency, Buenos Aires Legislature.

• The problem: Promoting sustainable habits among the citizens of Buenos Aires is a challenge.

• Why it matters: Sustainable cities rely on different actors adapting regularly as knowledge advances and technologies become accessible.

• The solution: Designing sustainability policies that incorporate cultural transformation as a main pillar of development.

In early 2021 the City of Buenos Aires launched its Climate Action Plan for 2050 responding to the ever-growing global need to tackle the climate crisis, in line with the Paris Climate Agreement. The concept of inclusion was essential in the construction of this plan, prioritising actions aimed at the sectors most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and creating spaces for different local sectors and stakeholders to participate in the climate action development process.

"Our target is for 80% of our residents to separate their waste at home by 2023."

One of the main assumptions of the climate change mitigation agenda is that while governments have the power to promote change, their agendas rely heavily on citizen uptake of the policies they propose and a willingness to adjust their behaviour. This extends from private citizens to institutions, industries and communities of knowledge as well, and co-creation with all these actors plays a key role in producing a robust and legitimate agenda.

With this in mind, at the Ministry of Public Space and Urban Hygiene, we designed #BARecycle as a holistic plan to promote sustainable habits in the city based on multiple pillars: i) revamp of the management of the waste collection system and its infrastructure; ii) updated norms, iii) cultural transformation.

Why it’s important

We are convinced that one of the most relevant ways in which we can take care of our City and the planet is by being responsible consumers, reusing and recycling. The current percentage of recovery of recyclables shows Latin America at 12.8% on average, and Buenos Aires at 18.6% in comparison to cities that have a longer history with this agenda like Barcelona, which reports 42.3%. Our target is for 80% of our residents to separate their waste at home by 2023. To achieve this we are creating an ecosystem of practices that include as key actors: our residents, waste pickers co-ops, borough authorities, citizens that volunteer as green ambassadors, building managers, the private sector including companies, NGOs, universities and big industries that are macro-generators of waste.

Currently, 46% of our residents declare that they separate their waste, and among those who don’t they attribute it to lack of habit or lack of time (41%); lack of a nearby container to dispose of recyclables (34%), lack of a bin to store recyclables at home (13%); or because it is not worth it (12%). It is also recurrently alleged that residents don’t trust the system as it is not clear to them how and where recyclables are treated when correctly disposed of.

What’s next

This article is the first of a series that will dive deep into different actions the city is developing under the cultural transformation chapter, which aims to engage citizens and communities across the city through learning and participative spaces, with the complementary objectives of setting sustainable practices as a priority for citizens. It’s also aimed to improve our programming by learning what people are demanding from us and are ready to take on.

Throughout the series, we will explore innovations in community engagement to promote recycling, the case of how citizens’ demands reshaped the city’s organic waste programmes; as well as further policies that contribute to the City’s Climate Action plan, including how regular upkeep of the public space allowed for quick low-cost urban acupuncture interventions that allowed to make its uses even more flexible.

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(Image Credit: Unsplash)