Abstract
The increasing amount of waste in cities poses a great challenge for sustainable development. Promoting waste sorting is one of the priorities for various levels of public authorities in the context of the rapid growth of waste generation all around China. To achieve this goal, waste-sorting policies should be precisely designed to ensure successful waste reduction at all stages. Previous studies have neglected the spillover effects of different regulatory policies, which may affect the overall goal of reducing waste by influencing different waste production stages. This paper fills this gap by comparing the spillover effects of two typical waste-sorting policies on sustainable consumption behaviours through a survey conducted in Shanghai and Beijing (control group). By combining quasi-natural experiment and questionnaire methods, this paper analyses data through a mediation test to explore the spillover effects between different regulatory policy groups and the effects of the mediation psychological factors. Results show that a penalty policy significantly decreases people’s sustainable consumption behaviours through a negative spillover effect, while a voluntary participation policy significantly increases sustainable consumption behaviours through a positive spillover effect. Results can provide implications for policymaking in waste management and other pro-environmental fields to help cities become more sustainable by shifting multiple behaviours.
Highlights
With the recent increasing severity of ‘garbage sieges’ [1] in Chinese cities, the policy of separating household waste for disposal has been raised to an unprecedented level
This paper aims to distinguish the effects of different policies regarding waste sorting and specify the type of policy that can promote sustainable consumption behaviours
On the basis of our hypotheses and the literature review, we considered the regulatory policy as an independent variable and sustainable consumption behaviours as dependent variables, respectively
Summary
With the recent increasing severity of ‘garbage sieges’ [1] in Chinese cities, the policy of separating household waste for disposal has been raised to an unprecedented level. Rural Development jointly issued their Mandatory Waste Sorting System Program (Draft) in June 2016. To promote waste-sorting behaviour, the Chinese government chose several cities as pilot areas for garbage classification. These cities designed various regulatory policies aimed at transforming human behaviour towards improved waste sorting and minimisation. For these cities, waste-sorting policies should be precisely designed to ensure successful waste reduction at all stages to achieve the waste reduction goal. Should waste sorting be promoted, the amount of waste produced upstream deserves attention
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