To define the manipulation of proximity ( high vs. low ) , we conducted a pretest and an additional pilot test . Fifty Italian consumers ( Mage 26 ; 53 % female ) were included in the pretest . We recruited these participants via the ProlificAcademic ( ProA ) online crowdsourcing platform given that its participants produce higher - quality data compared to other platforms ( Peer et al . , 2017 ) . We asked participants to indicate the maximum distance between the drop - off bin and the home that they were realistically willing to travel to dispose of exhausted batteries in specific bins . The smallest distance ( 50 m ) and the largest distance ( 5 km ) indicated by respondents were chosen for the manipulation of low and high proximity in the experiment , respectively .