College students living in campus dorms respond well to  recycling campaigns that include social media, researchers in North Carolina  found.The study was conducted at the University of North Carolina Charlotte by the  university´s Waste Reduction Office, the NCDNR Division of Pollution  Prevention and Environmental Assistance and Mecklenburg County Land Use and  Environmental Services Solid Waste Division.

Over a four week period, researchers  tracked students at three dormitories while conducting a recycling awareness  campaign that included social media platforms Twitter, Facebook and Youtube  pages. The study was aimed at increasing recycling rates and creating  positive attitudes towards recycling, according to the university.

Periodic  reminders might be the key to getting college students to recycle more, the authors  of the report wrote. "The majority felt they possessed sufficient recycling  knowledge and just forget to do it," the report states. Students were  surveyed before and after the program to determine attitudes toward recycling.

Most students said they didn´t recycle due to "Not thinking about it" or inconvenience of drop off bins. Students at Cedar and Hickory residence halls on  the UNC-Charlotte campus increased their recycling habits significantly  during the study, the authors report. Cedar students increased their recycling  from 51 pounds of bottles, cans and paper to 129 pounds. Students in Hickory  increased their collections from 46 pounds to 106. The largest recycling  hall, Sycamore, decreased from 113 pounds to 108 pounds during the study.

Bottles were the most-recycled material on campus, with paper coming in second.