Nudging to promote household waste source separation: Mechanisms and spillover effects

Abstract

Promoting waste source separation is one of the policy priorities for public authorities at all levels in China as well as other developing countries undergoing an extremely rapid expansion in waste generation. This paper views the selective waste collection schemes in pilot cities of China as one typical nudging policy and empirically examines its impacts on household waste source separation. Using a novel nationally representative dataset from the Chinese General Social Survey, we find that the pilot program significantly increases the frequency of household waste sorting, which are reinforced for people with high levels of social trust or low individualism. In addition, further evidence points to that the pilot program not only increases the frequency of household waste source separation in neighboring cities but also prominently stimulates waste prevention and reduction practices in targeted people. Finally, waste-related knowledge and interpersonal interaction are likely operative channels of impacts.