CSWD household survey finds strong support for waste reduction, flags film plastics and food scraps as priorities

The Chittenden Solid Waste District (CSWD) presented results of a 2024 household survey to its board of commissioners on May 28, showing broad public support for waste reduction and identifying packaging, plastic film and food scraps as the top challenges to diversion.

"The purpose of this work is to understand your community's knowledge and actions and viewpoints related to waste diversion and what motivates folks to make less waste," said Michael Moser of the Center for Rural Studies, who led the December 2024 online survey of Chittenden County residents.

The survey received about 1,800 responses, which Moser said yields a low margin of error for the presented results. Key findings included that 97% of respondents think reducing waste is somewhat or very important; 91% cited environmental reasons among their motivations. Respondents reported that packaging and plastic film are the largest barriers to reducing trash, and food scraps remain among the most commonly discarded items.

The survey also measured awareness and use of CSWD facilities. About 85% of respondents reported having used at least one CSWD drop-off center; 70% typically dispose of household trash through a hauler and roughly 30% use drop-off centers. Awareness of the organics recycling facility was high, though 53% had never used it; distance and the challenge of transporting food scraps were cited as common barriers.

The findings revealed knowledge gaps staff called significant for program planning. For example, 40–49% of respondents reported they were unaware of retail plastic-film collection options; textile collection awareness was also relatively low despite textiles showing up in waste-composition data as a material with diversion potential. CSWD staff said the district’s vendor relationships had briefly interrupted textile collection in the past and that renewed services may not be fully known to residents.

"So those are kind of our three priorities to communicate, educate, work on as an organization," said Sarah Reeves, CSWD executive director, referring to food, blue recyclables and textiles as the items with the greatest diversion opportunity based on the survey and the statewide waste-characterization study.

Survey respondents reported a higher-than-county average rate of homeownership and educational attainment, which Moser said creates a response bias: homeowners and more highly educated residents historically respond at higher rates. The sample also overrepresented Burlington by about 10 percentage points compared with county population distribution, a factor Moser noted when interpreting facility-awareness results.

On service satisfaction, 95% of drop-off users said centers were very easy or somewhat easy to use; reported barriers included limited hours, distance and lack of convenient transportation. For the Environmental Depot (household hazardous waste facility), 74% knew about it and 73% of those users found it easy or somewhat easy to use, while the Depot's appointment system was a top complaint among the minority who found it difficult.

Respondents’ preferred communication channels were distributed: 43% preferred email, 34% a website, 31% Front Porch Forum and lower shares for social media. Moser and board members noted that no single channel reaches everyone and recommended multimodal outreach.

Board members and staff discussed next steps. Commissioners asked about comparisons to prior CSWD surveys and other districts; Moser said the district’s questions were tailored to current information needs and that statewide surveys exist but are not directly comparable because of differing question sets. Staff said they plan follow-up surveys and targeted outreach, and they described plans under consideration—such as evaluating drop-off collection for film plastics and Styrofoam—while noting potential capital and labor costs for baling and marketing those materials.

The presentation ended with commissioners thanking the research team and noting the survey will inform CSWD communications and program priorities going into the next budget year. The board packet includes the full report and the district said it will use the data to shape education on film plastics, textiles and food-scrap diversion.

Less central details and next steps: staff said they will work with the district's marketing contractor to make technical materials more digestible for the public, and they budgeted for additional surveys next year to dig deeper into topics raised by the December results.