NEW YORK (AP) — Lauren Click founded a nonprofit a few years ago offering free composting education to schools around the country. Today, 112 schools participate, yet she can't get her boyfriend to properly separate his trash at home in Scottsdale, Arizona.
“Adults have more set behaviors than young kids. I try to model a behavior and hopefully he does it,” said Click, executive director of her Let’s Go Compost organization. “But it’s also like, I’m not his parent. I’m not going to berate him every day or ruin my relationship over this. I just fish a bunch of stuff out of the trash.”
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This 2024 image released by Let’s Go Compost shows a student holding worms and compost in a school garden in Tucson, Ariz. (Let’s Go Compost via AP)
Sarah Davies, right, and her 16-year-old son, Cal Davies, appear at home in Bethesda, Maryland on March 13, 2025. (Sarah Davies via AP)
FILE - Plastic waste is stored in a recycling centre in Frankfurt, Germany, Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Probst, File)
FILE - A man walks on a railway track littered with plastic and other waste materials on Earth Day in Mumbai, India, on April 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool, File)
FILE - A runner grabs a bottle of water at the athlete's village prior to the start of the 116th running of the Boston Marathon, in Hopkinton, Mass., on April 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Stew Milne, File)
FILE- A fast food soft drink cup and plastic straw appears in Surfside, Fla., May 24, 2018. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)
FILE - Compost is separated at a recycling facility in Malabon, Philippines on Feb. 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)
A plastic beverage bottle appears on the sand in Sandy Hook, N.J.on Feb. 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry, File)
Her efforts, which she calls 50-50 effective with her partner, point to an important question in the field of environmental psychology: What’s the best approach when looking to influence colleagues, friends and family to live more sustainably? What’s the worst?
Researchers say Click is on the right track. Modeling can work, though as with other approaches, it depends on who the sender is, how the message is framed and who it’s intended for.
Here’s a look at some of the issues and strategies involved in making people more aware of their role in climate change, which is caused by the burning of fuels like gasoline, coal and gas, and encouraging them to cut waste and protect the natural world.
Magnus Bergquist is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. His research focuses on how to persuade people to adopt more eco-friendly behavior. In a recent study reviewing studies in his area, Bergquist homed in on the influence of others.
“What we found was the most effective strategy for changing behavior is social norms, pointing to what other people are doing or people’s perception of other people’s approval or disapproval,” he said.
"But interestingly, when we ask people about the effectiveness of different interventions, people tend to say that social norms are among the least effective ones,” Bergquist added.
The bottom line: Humans are generally social animals, which isn’t a surprise. But most people underestimate how much they’re influenced by social norms, and campaigns are often based on strategies that are less effective, he said.
While Click is unlikely to pay off her boyfriend to do better, Bergquist said financial incentives or disincentives are the second most effective strategy (behind social norms) in getting people to take more sustainable steps in their lives.
That covers everything from bonus cash in a community or office to tax benefits, he said. But there's a caveat.
When people change their behavior because of financial incentives or disincentives, “some studies show that it crowds out people’s moral compass,” he said. “They will do it for the money. They won’t do it for the sake of the question as such.”
Example: A popular way to promote pro-environmental behavior is holding a contest for something like conserving energy or riding your bike to work.
“Ride your bike and a get a prize,” Bergquist explained. “What we see over and over again is that’s effective in the short term. When the prize or the contest is removed, people tend to go back.”
Norah Hippolyte is the business manager for St. Mary Magdalen Parish in socially progressive Berkeley, California. She supplies table goods for workers and a wide range of group gatherings, from funerals and community dinners to functions for the parish's school.
For several years, she's been trying to wean everyone onto compostable plates, cups, bowls and utensils.
“So I buy the stuff. I make sure people are aware I've got it in the closet, that that's where I keep everything. I say, use this stuff. Make sure you let me know when people start to run low,” she said. “But people choose not to use what’s there. They’re using their own things, and it’s all regular plastic."
She tries to get them to rinse and recycle, or clean what's cleanable so it can be used again.
“When I started working in Berkeley, I figured everybody had this whole recycle thing down. Nooooo,” Hippolyte said. “Not only did I have to learn, I have to now try and teach people, OK, this bin is for this, this and this. That bin is for this. Sorting is the biggest issue."
Hippolyte's experience doesn't surprise Bergquist. "I always want to mention education — trying to inform people or educate people about issues — because that tends to be ineffective alone,” he said.
Bergquist says those who have been talking themselves to death or shoveling facts into the faces of reluctant folks should add some other motivation.
For example, when Sarah Davies was trying to convince her 16-year-old son to give up single-use plastics, she switched strategies.
“He truly believed he can use plastic as much as he likes and then put it into the recycling bin,” said Davies, who heads up communications for Earthday.org, organizers of the April 22 Earth Day. “What finally made the difference was me explaining that when he's drinking from a single-use plastic bottle, be it water or soda, he's also drinking potentially 240,000 nano particles of plastics. That shocked him.”
Bergquist noted that a couple of experiments have indicated that people pay more attention to negative information than positive information.
“So instead of saying many people are pro-environmental, you can say people are avoiding environmentally harmful products,” he said. “It's the avoidance.”
It's a small but potentially valuable tweak, Bergquist said. Take straws.
“Instead of saying people are using paper straws, you might say most people are avoiding plastic straws. You don't have to explain. People will find an explanation,” he said.
Other expert tips for persuasion include picking your battles; starting small, focusing on one habit; appealing to the person's interest in other benefits, like saving money or being more efficient; keeping it easy; and not forcing the issue.
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
This 2024 image released by Let’s Go Compost shows a student holding worms and compost in a school garden in Tucson, Ariz. (Let’s Go Compost via AP)
Sarah Davies, right, and her 16-year-old son, Cal Davies, appear at home in Bethesda, Maryland on March 13, 2025. (Sarah Davies via AP)
FILE - Plastic waste is stored in a recycling centre in Frankfurt, Germany, Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Probst, File)
FILE - A man walks on a railway track littered with plastic and other waste materials on Earth Day in Mumbai, India, on April 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool, File)
FILE - A runner grabs a bottle of water at the athlete's village prior to the start of the 116th running of the Boston Marathon, in Hopkinton, Mass., on April 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Stew Milne, File)
FILE- A fast food soft drink cup and plastic straw appears in Surfside, Fla., May 24, 2018. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)
FILE - Compost is separated at a recycling facility in Malabon, Philippines on Feb. 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)
A plastic beverage bottle appears on the sand in Sandy Hook, N.J.on Feb. 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry, File)
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Palestinians in the Gaza Strip had little to celebrate Sunday as they marked the normally festive Eid al-Fitr with rapidly dwindling food supplies and renewed fighting in the Israel-Hamas war. Israeli strikes killed at least 19 people, mostly women and children, health officials said.
Many prayed outside demolished mosques on the holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. It's supposed to be a joyous occasion when families feast and purchase new clothes for children, but most of Gaza's 2 million people are just trying to survive.
“It’s the Eid of sadness,” Adel al-Shaer said after attending prayers amid rubble in the central town of Deir al-Balah. “We lost our loved ones, our children, our lives and our futures.”
Twenty members of his extended family have been killed by Israeli strikes, including four young nephews a few days ago, he said and began to cry.
Israel ended the ceasefire with Hamas and resumed the 17-month war earlier this month with a surprise bombardment that killed hundreds, after the militant group refused to accept changes to the truce reached in January. Israel has not allowed food, fuel or humanitarian aid to enter Gaza for a month.
“There is killing, displacement, hunger and a siege,” said Saed al-Kourd, a worshipper. “We go out to perform God’s rituals in order to make the children happy, but as for the joy of Eid? There is no Eid.”
Arab mediators are trying to get the truce back on track. Hamas said Saturday it had accepted a new proposal from Egypt and Qatar. Israel said it made a counter-proposal in coordination with the United States, which has also been mediating. The details were not immediately known.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would continue military operations while negotiating. He rejected claims that Israel does not want to end the war, while laying out conditions that go far beyond the signed ceasefire agreement and have been rejected by Hamas.
“Hamas will disarm. Its leaders will be allowed out. We will look out for the general security in the Gaza Strip and allow for the realization of (President Donald) Trump’s plan,” Netanyahu told a Cabinet meeting.
Trump has proposed that Gaza's population be resettled in other countries so the U.S. can redevelop Gaza for others. Palestinians say they do not want to leave their homeland. Human rights experts say the plan would likely violate international law.
Israeli strikes on Sunday morning killed at least 16 people, including nine children and three women, according to Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.
Two girls appeared to be wearing new clothes purchased for the holiday, according to an Associated Press cameraman, including spotless sneakers.
On Sunday evening, a strike hit a tent in Deir al-Balah and killed at least two people, according to an AP journalist at the hospital.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said 14 bodies were recovered in the southern city of Rafah, including eight of its emergency medical technicians and five members of Gaza’s Civil Defense, all who had been missing for a week. Israel’s military has said it fired on advancing “suspicious vehicles” and later discovered some were ambulances.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages. Hamas is still holding 59 captives — 24 believed to be alive.
Israel's offensive has killed over 50,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence, and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it operates in densely populated areas.
Netanyahu’s security Cabinet approved the construction of a road for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Critics say it will open the door for Israel to annex a key area just outside Jerusalem, further undermining the feasibility of a future Palestinian state.
Netanyahu’s office said the project is meant to streamline travel for Palestinians in communities near the large Jewish settlement of Maaleh Adumim.
Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement watchdog group, said the road will divert Palestinian traffic outside of Maaleh Adumim and the surrounding area known as E1, a tract of open land deemed essential for the territorial contiguity of a future state.
That will make it easier for Israel to annex E1, according to Hagit Ofran, a settlement expert with the group, because Israel can claim there is no disruption to Palestinian movement. Critics say Israeli settlements and other land grabs make a contiguous future state increasingly impossible.
Several roads in the West Bank are meant for use by either Israelis or Palestinians, which international rights groups say is part of an apartheid system, allegations Israel rejects.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three for their future state. A two-state solution is widely seen as the only way to resolve the decades-old conflict.
Jahjouh reported from Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, and Goldenberg from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Fatma Khaled in Cairo contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - Relatives mourn 12-year-old Ahmad Abu Teir, who was killed in an Israeli army strike, before his funeral along with seven other Palestinians, including a father, mother, and their three children, on the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A bracelet is wrapped around the hand of 10-year-old Dana Abu Sultan, who, along with her sister, brother, parents, uncle, and aunt, was killed when an Israeli army strike hit their tent, as their bodies lie on the floor at a hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, awaiting burial preparation on the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Mourners pray over the bodies of Jehad Abu Sultan, his wife Amal, their three children Dana, Hasan, and Habeba, along with other relatives and a neighbor, all killed during an Israeli army strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - The bodies of 4-year-old Hasan Abu Sultan, left, and his sisters Dana,10, center, and Habeba, 7, right, lie on the floor at the hospital awaiting for burial preparation on the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid after they were killed along with their parents, uncle, and aunt when an Israeli army strike hit their tent in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians attend Eid al-Fitr holiday celebrations by the Dome of the Rock shrine in the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Mahmoud Illean)
The bodies of 4-year-old Hasan Abu Sultan, left, and his sisters Dana,10, center, and Habeba, 7, right, lie on the floor at the hospital awaiting for burial preparation on the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid after they were killed along with their parents, uncle, and aunt when an Israeli army strike hit their tent in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Mourners pray by the bodies of Palestinians killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip as they are brought for burial Deir al-Balah, Gaza, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Relatives react next to the body of a Palestinian who was killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A Palestinian girl is tossed into the air as people gather for Eid al-Fitr prayers by the Dome of the Rock shrine in the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Relatives react next to the body of a Palestinian who was killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Mourners pray by the bodies of Palestinians killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip as they are brought for burial Deir al-Balah, Gaza, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Mourners carry the bodies of Palestinians killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip as they are brought for burial Deir al-Balah, Gaza, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Muslim worshippers gather for Eid al-Fitr prayer in the mixed Arab Jewish city of Jaffa, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Muslim worshippers gather for Eid al-Fitr prayer in the mixed Arab Jewish city of Jaffa, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Muslim worshippers gather for Eid al-Fitr prayer in the mixed Arab Jewish city of Jaffa, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Muslim worshippers gather for Eid al-Fitr prayer in the mixed Arab Jewish city of Jaffa, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Muslim worshippers gather for Eid al-Fitr prayer in the mixed Arab Jewish city of Jaffa, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Muslim worshippers offer Eid al-Fitr prayer in the mixed Arab Jewish city of Jaffa, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Palestinians attend Eid al-Fitr prayer in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians attend Eid al-Fitr prayer in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians attend Eid al-Fitr prayer in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians attend Eid al-Fitr prayer in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians attend Eid al-Fitr prayer in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip , Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
