Waste prevention as a central field of action in modern environmental policy is at the top of the five-level waste hierarchy. Despite numerous environmental policy efforts in recent years, the per capita volume of municipal waste in Germany is rising. At the same time, the German population is attested a very high level of environmental awareness.

This apparent contradiction between a sufficiently pronounced environmental awareness and the increase in the amount of waste is the starting point for the research and development project. Questions will be examined as to how waste generation, separation behaviour and waste composition differ between population groups, which population groups have so far been reached by the public discourse on waste avoidance and by other communicative measures and whether the previous activities to strengthen waste avoidance have changed the waste-related behaviour of consumers.