No one stops to think about throwing the trash into the correct recycling bin. So much so, it has become a habit that society somehow accepts. After all, no one’s judging. But what if the trashcan could?

Idea: If people don’t sort out the trash, the trash will sort them out.

We redesigned standard recycling trashcans into an installation that classifies people into different IQ levels based on how well they separate the trash. By linking intelligence to the way one sorts the trash, we tapped into the pride of Chinese people to do the right thing – something that they always knew but never bothered to.

All it took was a simple reskinning of the standard recycling bins. The installation was divided into 3 categories, each catering to people of different IQ groups as indicated by labels. Those who chose to sort the trash correctly technically declared their IQ to be of the highest level. Likewise, those who chose not to would have inadvertently declared themselves to have low IQ.

We carried out this experiment at one of Shanghai’s busiest food street where there is a high volume of trash disposal such as food waste and paper wrappings. And we observed the crowd. Every single person stopped to carefully consider the correct bin to dispose his or her trash.

In one day, 1534 people interacted with the IQ Trashcans. 89% of the people chose to sort their trash correctly. This goes to show that education was never the problem. It was their indifference to it.

With one simple change to our recycling bins, we turned the problem into the medium that not only made a statement, but also proved that we can change people’s attitude towards recycling. By tapping into their pride, we awakened the public into doing the right thing for themselves, by themselves.