People empathize with humanlike products. When they need to dispose them, recycling feels more humane than throwing them away.

This text presents research that suggests anthropomorphizing product characteristics can lead to increased consumer recycling. Five studies, including lab and online studies and a field experiment, were conducted to explore the connection between anthropomorphism and recycling. The results suggest that anthropomorphism elicits both affective (empathy) and cognitive reactions (an abstract construal level) which can lead to increased recycling. The implications of this research for sustainable consumption and addressing climate change are discussed.