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Individual Motivations and Waste-Related Behaviours

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Household Waste Management

Abstract

This chapter is devoted to the analysis of individuals’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivations behind pro-social behaviours, focusing particularly on the waste management context. Drivers different from the pecuniary ones are considered to incentivize people to undertake waste reduction and recycling. The possible interrelationships between the two waste management behaviours are investigated and some field experiment studies have been reported that contribute to a better understanding of the motivations that lead people to adopt pro-social behaviour in the waste realm.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For an exhaustive survey , see Frey and Jegen (2001) and Bowles and Polania-Reyes (2012).

  2. 2.

    About the importance of behavioral economics for environmental economics, see Kesternich et al. (2017) and the literature review there presented.

  3. 3.

    Putting the containers at the curbside , for instance, is visible to the others.

  4. 4.

    The existing literature includes several studies about motivations and recycling and fewer about motivations and waste reduction .

  5. 5.

    Among these factors Barr (2007) includes the access to a curbside recycling facilities and the awareness of these facilities.

  6. 6.

    ‘Recycling is something parents and children feel good about, and for this reason households may be willing to pay for the mere opportunity to recycle’ (Kinnaman 2006, p. 222).

  7. 7.

    Abbott et al. (2013) consider curbside collection as one way to facilitate the visibility of recycling efforts .

  8. 8.

    The former, pricing waste according to effective production, is more Pigouvian in style. The latter inclines more towards cost recovery strategies, funding public infrastructure (e.g. drop off recycling centres ) that supports composting, recycling, and proper disposal through waste taxes or tariffs.

  9. 9.

    The dataset to capture extrinsic motivations is the same used for measures about intrinsic motivations , and this holds for all the other papers that are considered in this subsection.

  10. 10.

    Recycled products or products with low environmental impact, which are socially considered as environmentally friendly.

  11. 11.

    Between 2001 and 2011, recycling and composting of municipal waste increased from 27 to 40% in the EU -27, while landfilling decreased from 56 to 37% (Eurostat 2013). Only 11 countries cut their generation of municipal waste per capita, whilst 21 countries increased their production (EEA 2013).

  12. 12.

    The products used in their lab and field experiments consider materials that are used in the workplace or other environments and for which the consumers do not directly pay.

  13. 13.

    Data from the Survey of Public Attitudes and Behaviors Toward the Environment, conducted in England in 2009.

  14. 14.

    The policy may also include nudges, that is ‘any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behaviour in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives ’ (Thaler and Sunstein 2008, p. 6).

  15. 15.

    List (2011) underlines how field experiment can be used to enhance economics understanding on economics theory and facts.

  16. 16.

    Controlling for the socio-economic characteristics of the sample in a regression model, they also found that the decrease in garbage is greater for high income households while stomping (i.e. the practice to stuff more garbage as possible in a single bag) is greater for married couples.

  17. 17.

    More specifically, the injunctive norm entails ‘perceptions of which behaviors are typically approved or disapproved’ (Cialdini 2003, p. 105), while the descriptive norm entails ‘perceptions of which behaviors are typically performed’ (Cialdini 2003, p. 105).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics and Management, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy

    Marianna Gilli

  2. Department of Economics and Management, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy

    Susanna Mancinelli

  3. European University Institute, Florence, Italy

    Francesco Nicolli

  4. Department of Political and International Sciences, University of Siena, Siena, Italy

    Francesco Nicolli

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  1. Marianna Gilli
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  2. Susanna Mancinelli
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  3. Francesco Nicolli
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Correspondence to Marianna Gilli .

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Gilli, M., Mancinelli, S., Nicolli, F. (2018). Individual Motivations and Waste-Related Behaviours. In: Household Waste Management. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97810-9_2

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