The carrot or the stick: individual adaption against varying institutional arrangements

This study employs a unique household-level data-set to investigate the effectiveness of various waste separation policies under consideration of local socioeconomic contexts. Our results confirm previous findings that most demographic factors are generally not statistically significant. The findings suggest that waste separation knowledge, social capital, free provision of sortable containers and community collecting recyclables are positively associated with household involvement in waste separation. More importantly, while an increase in the garbage fee motivates non-sorting households to separate their waste into two categories of recyclables and non-recyclables, it also crowds out households’ preexisting motivations for sorting waste into three or more categories. The introduction of a garbage fee indeed substitutes rather than complements free provision of sortable containers and community collection of recyclables. Apart from actively fostering the creation of social capital, local authorities should, therefore, comprehensively design a compatible policy mix to adjust and optimize current management schemes for enhancing waste management practices.