A group of students taking the course last year explored why a returnable cups scheme at the University had foundered. Boomerang Cups was run by a student sustainability group with the support of the University’s Sustainability Office and used ceramic cups that could be used at cafés on campus for takeaway hot drinks. Student volunteers washed and returned the cups to containers at the cafés, ready for the next use.
The scheme was popular but the cups kept going missing.
Students Cassidy Dewar, Elizabeth Frude, and Azura Patterson, with fellow students Pooja Misra, Alice Hales, and Tim Taylor, used environmental psychology concepts they learned on Wokje’s course to identify the barriers to people returning the cups. Although a number of reasons came up, the one they decided to focus on was forgetfulness.
“People would get a cup with a hot drink, take it back to their office, continue with their work, and forget about it,” says Cassidy.
“Once a cup moved into a shared space—like a staff kitchen, for instance—it no longer stood out,” adds Elizabeth.
The students researched forgetful behaviour and explored different prompts and tools that could be used to mitigate it. A key idea was the proximity of the reminder.
“The prompt needs to be right there,” explains Azura. “That encouraged us to put the prompt on the cup.” She spent hours researching eco-friendly options for durable stickers.
They also focused on keeping messages clear and simple and framed in a positive way—‘remember’ to return your cup, rather than ‘don’t forget’.
The students presented their work at the end of 2019 and it has been further developed by the Sustainability Office. Although he thought Boomerang was a good name, Sustainability Director Andrew Wilks says they wanted to use te reo Māori. He turned to the Office of the Deputy Vice- Chancellor (Māori), who came up with ‘auraki’, which has the double meaning of ‘to return’ and ‘to urge’. The stickers now on the cups are bilingual and include the phrase ‘whakahokia mai’ or ‘please return me’. Containers with the same signage are displayed prominently in campus cafés.
“It’s amazing to think our work has led to the roll-out of a new scheme,” says Cassidy.
The students are full of praise for the course, saying they learned a lot along the way about the complexities of behaviour change and how to approach social marketing. They also became adept at group work.
“The skills of working in a group can apply to pretty much anything—to future jobs or other things you might want to get involved in,” says Azura.
