Household Recycling Research Articles

Improving urban waste management: A comprehensive study on household waste generation and spatial patterns in the Grand Guayaquil Metropolitan Area.

This study tackles the growing global concern about municipal waste management, particularly in cities like the Grand Guayaquil Metropolitan Area (GGA). Through realistic field studies on in situ household waste generation and geographic information system (GIS) tools, this work offers a framework to predict the quantities and types of recyclable household waste for any metropolitan area in Latin America. Over 4 weeks, students collected, sorted and weighed recyclable waste types, including plastic, paper, metal, glass and fabric, from 776 sampled household of the GGA. ArcGIS survey tool identified household locations and allowed to survey different socio-demographic features. With the help of ArcGIS interpolation method, the total household waste generation for GGA was predicted, and the classification of the different types of recyclable waste was also spatially distributed for the study area. The report identified notable trends in plastic waste, specifically polyethylene terephthalate waste's steady prevalence and 42% growth rate, emphasizing the importance of enhanced recycling techniques. Spatial density maps showed a heterogeneous waste distribution across the GGA, emphasizing locations with higher waste output. This study demonstrates that improving recyclable waste collection can be accomplished with a moderately cheap expenditure by collaborating with academia to overcome knowledge gaps. This strategy provides opportunities to mitigate the environmental impacts of poor waste management.

Factors Influencing Household Recycling Behavior in Lima, Peru: Insights for Social Marketing Strategies

ABSTRACT The main objective of this study is to find out what factors impact household recycling behavior with the aim to guide the development of a social marketing strategy to promote this behavior. The study was based on a structural equation model using the three factors that make up the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). In addition, four more variables were analyzed: environmental awareness, moral standards, situational factors, and recycling service and infrastructure. The results of 254 valid questionnaires reveal that the subjective norm – or social pressure – was the only variable of the TPB to affect recycle intention significantly. Considering the role social pressure has on recycling behavior, it is necessary to implement a social marketing strategy that maximizes the visibility of this activity and include the participation of the community as much as possible.

How Do Curbside Feedback Tactics Impact Households’ Recycling Performance? Evidence From Community Programs

Much of the responsibility for advancing the circular economy has been directed towards firms, yet many reuse opportunities can only be achieved through environmentally compliant, household-level recycling behaviors. In response, policymakers and recycling organizations are using a range of feedback mechanisms to promote household recycling that meets local quality standards. However, the effectiveness of these tactics remains unclear, and stakeholders are divided on the appropriateness of their use. In this research, we examine the role of two popular feedback mechanisms—information-only and information-plus-penalty—in correcting households’ curbside recycling behaviors. With information-only feedback, households are provided with best practices for recycling and are not penalized for their errors. With information-plus-penalty feedback, households also receive information, but temporarily forfeit their recycling services. While previous studies have explored the use of information and penalties as feedback mechanisms to guide behavioral changes, there is mixed evidence of their effectiveness, particularly in the recycling context. We address this research gap by analyzing unique data collected from a 2019 curbside auditing effort that occurred in a large, Mid-Western city. Our analysis leverages econometric methods, and recycling feedback and performance data from 25,359 audits across 11,899 households and 15 recycling routes. We find that information-only feedback mechanisms, while preferred by some stakeholders, are not associated with improvements in recycling quality (measured using household contamination rates). By contrast, our results indicate that punitive mechanisms (i.e., information-plus-penalty) involving cart refusals are associated with significant reductions in contamination rates: that is, households that receive punitive feedback reduce their contamination rate severity by 59%, and are 75% less likely to commit a violation in the future. More importantly, we do not find evidence that punitive feedback mechanisms generally discourage households’ participation in recycling programs (measured using future set out rates). Our study informs sustainable operations management literature by investigating how curbside feedback mechanisms, with differing levels of severity, influence critical dimensions of households’ recycling performance (i.e., recycling quality and participation). We also inform policymakers on how curbside feedback mechanisms can be more effectively leveraged to enhance opportunities for material reuse.

Explanation of Household Recycling Barriers Through Interruptive Structural Modeling (ISM) in the Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia

Explanation of Household Recycling Barriers Through Interruptive Structural Modeling (ISM) in the Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia

Bioaerosol Exposure during Sorting of Municipal Solid, Commercial and Industrial Waste: Concentration Levels, Size Distribution, and Biodiversity of Airborne Fungal

A study was carried out in a waste sorting plant (WSP) located in France, treating dry recyclable household waste (DRHW) as well as dry recyclable commercial and industrial waste (DRCIW). Stationary and personal inhalable samples were collected in the WSP in order to investigate bioaerosols (sampling on a filter; 2 L/min and 10 L/min) and airborne dust (CIP; 10 L/min). The aim of the study was to assess the extent to which the measurement of concentration, species composition, and particle size distribution contributes to a better assessment of the biological risks associated with exposure. The results confirmed that waste and waste sorting activities are sources of airborne fungi. Indeed, ambient concentrations ranged from 7.3 × 103 to 8.5 × 105 colony-forming units (CFU)/m3 for culturable fungi and up to 4 mg/m3 for dust. Personal exposure to inhalable dust was found up to 3 mg/m3 for dust and ranged from 8.6 × 103 to 1.5 × 106 CFU/m3 for fungi. Airborne fungal communities were found to be dominated by the Penicillium genera in both bioaerosols and settled dust samples, followed by the Aspergillus, Cladosporium, Wallemia, Mucor, and Rhizopus genera. Fungi were carried by particles of aerodynamic diameters, mainly between around 2.0 and 10.0 µm. The findings dealing with size distribution and biodiversity of bioaerosols suggest that employees are exposed to complex bioaerosols during their work and help to make a finer diagnosis of the risks involved, which is often difficult in the absence of any occupational exposure limit (OEL) value for bioaerosols in general.

Development and validation of a questionnaire for assessing the determinants that predict household recycling (ReDom Questionnaire).

The growing tendency towards 'urbanization' is promoting an increase in resource consumption and waste generation, which requires proper waste separation management with active participation of the population. To this end, it is essential to know the personal modifiable factors that predict recycling. The primary aim of the present study is to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of a Spanish language questionnaire designed to measure determinants of household waste separation for recycling purposes (ReDom Questionnaire). A cross-cultural adaptation, translation and psychometric evaluation was undertaken of an extant questionnaire originally developed in Swedish, and the resultant Spanish questionnaire was then subjected to reliability and validity testing. The questionnaire was developed using survey data from 759 respondents and 33 participants performed the retest to assess reliability. The resultant 'ReDom Questionnaire' is composed of three factors that draw on relevant elements of the COM-B framework: motivation (seven items), physical opportunity (three items) and social opportunity (three items). The accuracy of the scores is adequate both in terms of internal consistency (factorial weights >0.60; comparative fit index = 0.994; root mean square error of approximation = 0.049; root mean square residual (RMSR) = 0.053) and reliability (Pearson correlation >0.65; Cronbach's alpha >0.75). In conclusion, the Spanish ReDom Questionnaire showed adequate psychometric properties and appears useful for assessing the determinants of household waste separation.

The impacts of curbside feedback mechanisms on recycling performance of households in the United States

The impacts of curbside feedback mechanisms on recycling performance of households in the United States

Recycling household waste as a solution to the scarcity of subsidized fertilizer in Jetis Hamlet

Jetis Hamlet, Karanganyar Regency, is currently facing two urgent problems simultaneously: river pollution and fertilizer scarcity. The aim of the RG-EPP community service is to provide education on processing household waste into liquid organic fertilizer (LOF). Methods employed to achieve this goal include socialization, counseling, technical direction, creating video tutorials, training, practicing LOF-making skills, and conducting LOF laboratory tests. The results of this community service activity, besides addressing the issues of river pollution and fertilizer scarcity, indicate that the community has acquired knowledge and skills to produce high-quality liquid organic fertilizer. This fertilizer can be applied in rice farming using household waste as a raw material.

Ways to Solve the Problem of Recycling Household and Industrial Waste in Pavlodar

The relevance of this article is that the impact of human economic activity on the natural environment is becoming comparable in scale to geological factors. In this regard, the importance of protecting the biosphere has increased immeasurably. The earth is the only common home of all earthlings. Society, including us, cannot help but worry that the planet has approached a critical ecological threshold. The main goal of the research that we set for ourselves in this article is to create a predictive model for overcoming the environmental crisis in the following areas: environmental education, greening technologies, administrative and legal direction, international cooperation. To achieve the result, we tried to process as much information as possible, analyze the situation, draw appropriate conclusions and propose our own model for overcoming the environmental crisis. The hypothesis is that environmental pollution, improper disposal of household and industrial waste, and poor environmental culture have a detrimental effect on the ecology of the city, poisoning the environment and public health. The main research methods used were methods of empirical knowledge - these are observations, survey methods, questionnaires, as well as theoretical methods. The results of these studies can be used to inform the population about the impact of waste on human health, as well as the importance of storing, recycling and obtaining secondary raw materials, in order to reduce the amount of garbage on city streets. And also about the existence of unauthorized waste collection sites and administrative responsibility for the creation of such landfills in the city and in the surrounding area, this is an educational activity in all areas of education, starting from preschool institutions, the media, advertising agencies, NGOs, environmental authorities and also, using international experience, in the construction of a solid waste processing plant in his hometown.

Online source tracing of waste paper by smoke based on laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

Paper is a widely used material and common recyclable household waste in waste disposal, which gets more attention nowadays for the misclassification of recyclable waste. In this work, an online source tracing system combined with machine learning algorithms to identify and classify the smoke of waste paper incineration based on laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) was established. Four types of waste paper, including tissue, corrugated paper, printing paper, and newspaper, were taken as examples. The smoke of four different waste papers was detected by LIBS and then further analyzed. The detected spectra with C, N, O, Mg, Al, and Ca could hardly be distinguished artificially. The random forest algorithm and the linear discriminant analysis were introduced to classify the smoke, and its accuracy reached 95.83%. The results indicate that source tracing of waste paper can be realized by identifying and classifying the smoke via the developed system. This could provide some reference for helping us to monitor the effectiveness of waste classification and incineration and monitor the atmosphere pollution.

Community-Level Household Waste Disposal Behavior Simulation and Visualization under Multiple Incentive Policies—An Agent-Based Modelling Approach

The classification and recycling of household waste becomes a major issue in today’s urban environmental protection and domestic waste disposal. Although various policies promoting household waste classification have been introduced, the recovery rate failed to reach the expected result. Existing studies on incentive policies for household waste recycling tried to integrate subjective and objective factors in human behavior decisions. To explore how effective interventions can promote household waste classification in communities, this article developed an Agent-Based Model (ABM) based on Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to simulate the participation of households under eight different policy scenarios. The result shows that: monetary incentive is most effective in inducing participation, while social norms have different impacts on household decision under different policy intervention. Under policy stimulus, the participation rate of garbage sorting increased from 18% to 76%. This model has been applied into an online community-based participatory virtual simulation 3D system, which aims to help university students better understand how policies affect household recycling behaviors, which end up affecting the environment.

Accessing Consumer Perceptions of the Effectiveness of the Deposit Refund System

This study analyzes consumers’ perceptions of the Deposit Refund System (DRS) initiative in Greece. It aims firstly to measure the effectiveness of these systems in Greece. Secondly, based on elements from the Theory of Green Purchased Behavior, it identifies the motives of DRS users and how they affect DRS usage and perception. Data were gathered using a mail-out survey to consumers in various cities in Greece. The key finding supports the argument that moral motives significantly lower the costs associated with household recycling efforts. Moreover, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is used to examine the research hypotheses. The findings reveal that the DRS motives positively and statistically significantly affect the process of recycling and user perception of DRS. Moreover, the DRS perception affects the adoption of the DRS and complementary mediates the effect of motives for DRS adoption. The normalized model shows that an increase in motives by 1 unit will increase the perception of consumers for refundable recycling by 0.346 units. Similarly, an increase in the motives by 1 unit will increase the use of refundable recycling by 0.296 units.

The crowding out effect of financial incentives on conformity to pro-environmental social norms: a quasi-experiment on household recycling

Research has shown that financially incentivizing sustainable behaviors may undermine individuals’ conformity to pro-environmental social norms, but it remains unclear why and when such a crowding out effect occurs. Using data from a quasi-experiment in Quzhou, China, this study has tested crowding out in a local incentive program for household recycling and evaluated the causal mechanisms and boundary conditions of crowding out. The reward program reduced residents’ inclination to conform to their neighbors’ recycling behaviors and persuasion, which was driven by the lowering of the first- and second-order beliefs underlying norm conformity. The crowding out effect and pathways were particularly salient among people with high levels of environmental self-identity or community social embeddedness. Moreover, framing the incentivized behavior in an environmentally beneficial way could not mitigate crowding out. Overall, the results contribute to refined theories of crowding out and have important implications for the design of environmental policies.

Direct and spillover effects of social norm nudges for household recycling: A longitudinal field experiment

Applying social norm nudges to motivate household recycling is becoming increasingly popular. However, little is known about the compatibility between norm-based recycling policies and other waste management measures. Using a longitudinal field experiment with residents in Quzhou, China, we evaluated social norms messaging about household recycling in terms of its impact on recycling behavior and public support for waste prevention and harmless disposal policies. We also assessed treatment effect heterogeneity across subpopulations and persistence after messaging ended. The nudge increased recycling participation and policy support over a five-month treatment period, indicating positive direct and spillover effects. Both effects were more salient among recipients with weaker pro-environmental intrinsic motivation or community social embeddedness; however, they faded over a following five-month period when messaging was removed. Overall, the results suggest that social norm nudges improve the target behavior and facilitate policy synergy, although these benefits are neither universal nor sustainable.

Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the Impact of State Recycling and Deposit Laws: Household Recycling Following Interstate Moves

Abstract This article estimates the effects on recycling behavior of state recycling laws and deposit laws based on changes in household recycling before and after interstate moves. Estimates from a national panel dataset of 1,498 households who moved between states provide a quasi-experimental test otherwise not possible given long-term stability of such laws in any state. Compared to national average recycling rates, moves to states with deposits for beverage containers increased the number of material types recycled by 41%. More stringent recycling laws are also effective, but they have a smaller impact. Recycling laws boosted the number of materials recycled by 9%, with the largest effect being the 17% increase in the recycling rate for glass. Moves from states with deposit laws to states without such laws decreased the number of materials recycled by 13%. Shifts out of states with stringent laws only had statistically significant effects for plastic, which exhibited a 12% decrease after such a move.

Changes in household recycling behavior: Evidence from panel data

This article uses a longitudinal national U.S. dataset with 232,309 pairs of same-household observations to estimate one-year or two-year changes in recycling behavior. Most households recycled at least one material, as 83% recycle paper, cans, glass, or plastic in the past year, with an average recycling rate of 2.8 materials. Recycling habits are stable, as 68% of households do not change the number of materials recycled from the previous year. Changes in county recycling are reflected in immediate changes in household behavior but at 25% of the change in the county recycling rate. Recycling rates are greater after being newly exposed to deposit laws (+7%), moving to a state with effective recycling laws (+6%), or newly available single-stream recycling (+4%). If market prices for the returned cans doubled, household recycling of cans would increase by 12%, although price responsiveness of recycling other materials is less. Shocks to the household may diminish recycling in the short term, including marriage (−2%), arrival of a newborn (−1%), and either large increase in income (−1%) or large decrease in income (−3%). The estimates for the total number of materials and which particular materials a household recycles follow similar patterns.

Factors moderating the effect of financial incentives on household recycling: A motivation crowding perspective

Prior research has shown considerable variability in the impact of financial incentive interventions on household recycling behavior, but it remains unclear which factors determine the effect of incentive policies. Building on the motivation crowding framework, this study explores how intrapersonal, interpersonal, and policy framing factors moderate the incentive effect on household recycling. Theoretical propositions were evaluated using quasi-experimental data from an incentivized recycling program in Quzhou, China. Although the program increased the recycling levels of residents, it reduced individuals' intrinsic motivation to protect the environment and, through this, exerted a negative indirect effect on recycling behavior. Such motivation crowding out was more salient among people with higher levels of environmental self-identity or self-efficacy and those embedded in stronger neighbor ties or social norms. Consequently, the incentive program was less effective in promoting recycling behavior among these subpopulations. Framing the program in an environmentally beneficial way did not affect its motivational and behavioral influences. Overall, the results extend knowledge regarding the mechanisms underlying the performance of incentive policies and the conditions that affect policy effectiveness.

Resource accounting for a circular economy: evidence from a digitalised waste management system

ABSTRACT The transition to a circular economy requires accounting for all resource streams in the economy to facilitate the maintenance of these resources at their highest value and utility for as long as possible. In this paper, we investigate the role of resource accounting tools and practices in driving the transition to a circular economy by measuring resource streams and taking measures to promote circularity in those resource streams. In particular, we focus on (1) the role of digitalised resource accounting systems in enabling the identification and reporting of resource streams, and (2) the effect of using such information to incentivize household recycling behavior to promote more circularity in resource streams. Our empirical setting is the development of a digitalised waste management system in Western Norway. Our research design has three empirical pillars: qualitative interviews of managers in the industry, historical data analyses of waste generation and recycling, and two illustrative large-scale natural quasi-experiments on more than 170,000 households' recycling behavior. Our study illuminates the development of the resource accounting system and demonstrates the effect of using resource accounting information to incentivize households' recycling behavior through experimentation with a “pay-as-you-throw” (PAYT) system. Our findings show the manner in which the resource accounting system enabled measurement of resource streams and the use of that resource information to promote circularity among households. Furthermore, our experiments reveal the effectiveness of using resource accounting data for incentivizing recycling behavior. Thus, our study illuminates the role of accounting in the transition to a circular economy.

The mixed blessing of responsibility relief: An application to household recycling and curbside waste collection

This paper addresses the role of personal norms and warm glow in influencing households' waste recycling preferences. The purpose is to explore inter-household differences in the preferences toward the introduction of curbside recycling, which implies that households are relieved from the responsibility of transporting sorted waste to assigned drop-off stations. The main theoretical point of departure for the analysis is an existing model that integrates norm-motivated behavior into neoclassical utility theory. This builds on the assumption that the household members have preferences for upholding a self-image as responsible—norm-compliant—persons, and it also contains a warm-glow component. The empirical investigation relies on a postal survey to households in a Swedish municipality, and this asks households about their willingness-to-pay (WTP) for the introduction of a curbside recycling scheme, as well as about time use and the presence of personal norms and warm glow motives. The results are based on a Heckman selection specification and show that individuals expressing a strong personal norm for recycling are more likely to be willing to pay for curbside recycling, while those with strong warm glow motives are less likely to do so. This suggests the existence of a mixed blessing of responsibility relief. Curbside recycling implies that households are relieved from a moral responsibility that takes time away from leisure activities, but they also experience a loss in warm glow as such a scheme removes the possibility to pursue something that they have learned to appreciate. There could then exist ‘motivational inertia' making it difficult for policy makers to activate personal norms for new pro-environmental household activities in replacement of existing ones.

Exploring household recycling participation e-wastes management: An application of TPB and NAM models

Exploring household recycling participation e-wastes management: An application of TPB and NAM models