Feasibility assessment of crowdsourcing slogans for promoting household waste segregation in India: a cross-sectional study

Kavya Krishnan; Krushna Chandra Sahoo; Madhanraj Kalyanasundaram; Surya Singh; Asha Srinivas; Ashish Pathak; Cecilia Stålsby Lundborg; Salla Atkins; Kamran Rousta; Vishal Diwan

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2023.1118331

Feasibility assessment of crowdsourcing slogans for promoting household waste segregation in India: a cross-sectional study

Front Public Health. 2023 Oct 11:11:1118331. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1118331. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Kavya Krishnan¹, Krushna Chandra Sahoo², Madhanraj Kalyanasundaram³, Surya Singh¹, Asha Srinivas⁴, Ashish Pathak^{5

6}, Cecilia Stålsby Lundborg⁶, Salla Atkins^{7

8}, Kamran Rousta⁹, Vishal Diwan^{1

6}

Affiliations

¹ Division of Environmental Monitoring and Exposure Assessment (Water and Soil), ICMR-National Institute for Research in Environmental Health, Bhopal, India.
² ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre, Bhubaneswar, India.
³ ICMR-National Institute of Epidemiology, Chennai, India.
⁴ Gram Seva Sangh, Bengaluru, India.
⁵ Department of Pediatrics, R D Gardi Medical College, Ujjain, India.
⁶ Department of Global Public Health, Health Systems and Policy (HSP): Improving Use of Medicines, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
⁷ Department of Global Public Health, Social Medicine Infectious Disease and Migration (SIM), Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
⁸ Global Health and Development, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland.
⁹ Swedish Centre for Resource Recovery, University of Borås, Borås, Sweden.

Abstract

Introduction: Crowdsourcing is an emerging technique to engage or access a wider set of experts and multiple stakeholders through online platforms, which might effectively be employed in waste management. Therefore, we assessed the feasibility of the crowdsourcing method to provide an alternative approach that can improve household waste segregation using an "online-slogan-contest".

Methods: The contest was promoted via targeted emails to various governmental and non-governmental organizations and through social media platforms for around 4 weeks (25 days). The entries were received through a Google form. The slogans were assessed by the experts and analyzed using content analysis methods.

Results: Total 969 entries were received from different geographic regions in India. Of that, 456 were in English and 513 in Hindi. Five themes of waste segregation emerged from the received slogans: (1) Community awareness, responsibility, and support, (2) Significance of household waste segregation, (3) Use of separate dustbins, (4) Health and well-being, and (5) Environment and sustainability.

Discussion: Crowdsourcing approaches can be used by local authorities for improving waste management approaches and are recommended as these involve a wider audience within a short time frame. Moreover, this approach is flexible and integrating crowdsourcing approaches strengthens our understanding of existing waste management activities.

Keywords: India; community participation; crowd sourcing; environmental health; household waste segregation; online contest; slogan contest.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Cross-Sectional Studies
Crowdsourcing* / methods
Feasibility Studies
Humans
India
Waste Management*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development FORMAS (grant no. 2019–00439). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.