Results of Sustainability Survey
Results of Sustainability Survey Amongst members of the North Somerset IPMS Club
30 club members completed the survey in-full or partially, from a circulation list of 45. This represents a significant 67% response rate compared to the typical norms of between 5-30% for online surveys.
-When using terms like 'typical', 'most common', then the average is reported using the 'mode', which is calculated based upon the most frequently chosen answer.
-Variability in N. Where you see N = 28, this means that 28 members responses are included in the statistic or chart. The number of N changes across questions as members chose to skip or not provide an answer for some parts of the survey.
1. Experience and Model Choice
The club is typically one that's made up of 'modelling veterans', with over 20 years' experience in the hobby under their belt. We look to market and bring in novice modellers to sustain club
The diversity of subjects modelled by club members, reflects that clubs aspiration and motto of 'We Do All Sorts'.
Only 5 out of the 30 members who completed the survey reported modelling a single subject.
The majority (25/30) of members build models from across an average of 3 different categories.
The most popular categories were aircraft (23/30), Armour (17/30), Dioramas, (14/30) and Ships/Boats (13/30). With other categories (SciFi, NASA/Space, Motorbikes, buildings, railway engines) showing an under representation of interest around the club with 4 or less nominations.
2. Show Attendance + Car Sharing.
The majority of members (27/30) reported to have been to a model show at least once in a year. The minority who do not go to shows, gave their personal circumstances as a reason
Within the data, 2 extreme groups emerged. “Light weights ” cluster of those who only go to 1-2 shows (11/30) vs the “Hard core” (10/30) those who are going to 5 or more shows per annum.
Break down results of car sharing across these groups revealed that 90% of those who go to more shows engaged in car sharing compared to only 45% of those who go to the least amount of shows. The difference between the groups was subjected to testing within SPSS using the Chi Square analysis and found to be statistically significant beyond what would be expected by chance, χ(1) = 4.677, P = 0.031
3. Magazine Format and Disposal Routes.
The majority (24/30) buy some modelling magazine on a monthly or less frequent basis. Only 6 members reported never buying any.
By far the majority (21/30) of those who buy magazines continue to do so in paper form only.
1 member reported buying digital magazine formats only, with a further 2 purchasing in both paper and online formats.
Disposal – Routes No one admitted throwing in general waste.
Of the 10 members who purchasers paper magazines on a monthly basis, the majority (7/10) engage in more than one means of disposing of magazines.
Only a minority of members (3/10) exclusively Hoard their magazines..
4. Paint Choices + Application.
Most popular range (25/30) Water Based Acrylics. e.g. Vallejo, Citadel, AMMO, AK Interactive. Nearly 30% (9/30) reported only using this formula of paint in their modelling.
- Traditional oil/solvent based enamels are still endorsed by sizable part of club members (14/30).
- Minority (3/30) extend their palette to include artist oils.
Members use a diversity of paint formulas. 17/30 reported using more than one formula of paints in their modelling. Although, ‘Acrylics’ seem to dominate modellers choice. Within this category the alcohol and lacquer based have environmental and cleaning implications.
5. Airbrush or Rattle can users.
Majority (25/30) of membership are airbrush users. This has implication for health and environmental disposal of waste and paint spall.
Impact on Health and Environment.
- Majority of club have some concern as to impact of using spray on own health or environment. Only 1 member expressed no concern with either.
- Most cited precautions equated to the use of spray booth or natural ventilation, either on their own or in combination.
- Nearly half (11/25) of the members reported the use of a spray booth.
6. Disposal of paint.
Generate excitement
The majority of membership (21 /29) report to dispose of paint/thinner waste through a single or combination of sustainable recycling routes.
Only a small number of membership (8/29) reported disposing of the waste, solely through ‘black bag’ collection.
7. Kit Purchase and Waste Disposal
7a. Kit Purchases and Carbon Footprint.
Most frequently purchased from geographical location is ‘domestic’ UK.
EU and Asia/Japan next frequent purchased from destinations.
Next USA and then minority of fringe parts of world.
7b. Disposal Routes Around Kit Boxes and Instructions.
Members tend to adopt a single disposal route rather than multiple ways of disposing of empty kit boxes and instructions.
Majority (15/28) choose to dispose of these items in domestic recycling.
No member reported disposing of empty kit boxes by selling them on line.
Members who selected ‘Other’ route did so by donating to Fred but how will Fred then dispose of them in due course?
8. Sprue Recycling.
Review of the chart left shows a great deal of variety amongst the membership as to how they dispose of left over parts and sprue gates
.
Some members reported having access to domestic hard plastic recycling. But none reported using commercial/council hard plastic recycling routes.
Only 3 members reported that they threw away sprues in the ‘black bag’ waste.
Typically, members utilise a combination of disposal routes and recycling means such a donating to others, repurpose as ‘sprue glue’, accessories etc.
9. Unwanted kits.
From the members responses roughly half demonstrate a degree of generosity in giving unwanted kits to charity or others in the club. Whiles the other half demonstrate a degree of philanthropy by selling unwanted kits on.
Legacy
The majority of the membership (22/29) affirmed to having thought about the legacy of their kit/accessories should they not be able to continue modelling.
Conclusions and Recommendations.
The results of the survey revealed that a lot of members already engage in behaviours, either consciously or not, that minimize the impact the hobby has on their own health and/or the environment. This is important as the IPMS does not have its own steer on sustainability, most branch clubs neither do and there is little drive amongst most kit manufactures other than labelling sprue or paper products with recycling symbols to address impact and waste issues.
There are always going to be areas where members could do a little more or the club could take the initiative and use what people are already doing in its marketing material, as recommended below. But the uptake of any change is subject to peoples motivation, the availability of recycling routes and the trade off between the amount of effort people are prepared to put in and the magnitude of the outcome achievable.
The issues are probably exacerbated by the large geographic area that the club covers and the convenience or not of travelling to club meets, events. It is therefore clear that digital or technological solutions should be the default option to consider before any other. As in the case of magazines where digital alternative offer a easier solution to the continued recycling and storage space of traditional paper ones.
Points for NSMS to consider going forward ;
Experience
Veteran modelling club, with seasoned modellers. Leaves the question of the longer term sustainability of the club without new, younger members coming into the club.
Implication that club should review its marketing strategy, media face and target audience focus to align with a potential younger audience.
Subject Model Choice
The membership epitomize the clubs motto of ‘We Do Allsorts’ in the range of subjects they are willing to model. Aircraft and armour are heavily represented by the club membership buts it’s important that less popular subjects are represented on the clubs webpages and/or show tables as a reflection of the diversity and the talent within the club.
Kit Purchases and Carbon Footprint.
More than anywhere else, club members prefer to buy from UK suppliers. To a lesser extent some members buy directly from suppliers in Europe or Asia.
What the survey failed to extrapolate was the country of manufacture, so there is no way to give some assessment of the greenhouse emissions incurred by UK suppliers to arrange for Kits to be shipped into the country in the first place.
Recommendation. -- Can club members work together or in conjunction with suppliers to secure discounts by pooling their purchases into fewer orders and so A) take advantage of free postage and B) reduce the number of orders and greenhouse gases being generated.
Show Attendance + Car Sharing
The club does not want for members willing to represent the club at model shows. There is a small number of members whose health or occupation prevent them going to shows. In contrast, there is a “Hard Core” group who are attending a large number (5 or more) of shows per annum. Although they maybe clocking up more travel miles and increasing greenhouse gas emissions, they are more likely to car share, than members who go to fewer shows.
This finding begs the question ‘why’? Is it because those who car share to shows have historically more well established friendship networks within the club. Or does it reflect that those who go to less shows live in geographical locations or health needs that do not readily facilitate carsharing with other club members. Maybe the club can look at incentivizing even greater efforts to increase carsharing and reduce the clubs annual green house emissions in traveling to shows.
Recommendation. -- the club to consider using digital photoframes at shows to display the models of those members who find it hard to travel in person to shows so we can demonstrate better inclusivity and diversity.
Magazine Format and Disposal Routes
Despite the availability of digital magazines, the majority of the clubs membership has not migrated to this media and remain consumers of paper versions.
This has an implication for both the amount of storage space needed to keep magazines over time or the amount of paper waste generated by their disposal.
Typically most members are not complete hoarders but choose to move paper based magazine onto others or dispose through domestic recycling routes.
Recommendation. -- For the members to consider using one of the Sunday meet ups as an ‘Annual Magazine’ purge. Given that Weston Recycling Centre is only just down the road and is open at a weekend. We could use this as publicity to go on website.
Paint Choices + Application
Over half of the membership surveyed reported using different formulas of paints in their modelling. Acrylic paint formulas are the most commonly used, although old school enamels still remain in use across the membership.
Nearly all of the membership make use of an airbrush or rattle can. With a sizable number also having a spray booth in place to extract paint overspray from the immediate work space. 2/3rds of those surveyed demonstrate an ethical consciousness through disposal of paint products by recycling routes, as opposed to the remainder who dispose of in black bag waste only.
Recommendation. -- For members to share their experiences and feedback of any new paints, spray booths, PPE, that might be of use to others if they wish to purchase their own.
Kit and Sprue Waste.
In most cases members recycle their old kit instructions and boxes, rather than hoarding them.
The type of plastic used in model kits makes domestic recycling of sprue and unwanted parts less sustainable and more determined by council lead services in a members area rather individual motivations.
There are some members who ‘off set’ old boxes and sprue waste to others within the club. Whilst these donations are well appreciated it does mean that they have a larger legacy to dispose of later on.
Recommendation. -- As hard plastic is a difficult item to dispose of through domestic waste then maybe the club can consider organising a ‘disposal bin’ where members can come and dispose of any sprues and this could become another annual disposal event and photo marketing opportunity at the Weston Recycling Centre that could be tied into one of the Sunday meets.
Kit Donations and Cache Legacy.
The membership surveyed fell into rough 50/50 between those who gift/donate their unwanted kits to charity and those who try and make a little cash return.
Although the survey never asked any direct question about what people were contemplating to deal with the ‘legacy’ of their modelling, the topic is not a taboo subject for the membership as most had privately given some thought to the subject.
Recommendation. -- There is clearly an appetite in the club to donate to charity and this could again become an annual event that would reap publicity. Some charities’ maybe better placed to shift volume via an on-line presence so it would take some degree of co-ordination to select viable ones.