Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Ecological Economics
Publication Date
3-20-2023
ISSN
2472-0119
Page Number
107819
Keywords
household recycling, environmental law
Disciplines
Environmental Law | Law
Abstract
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.
Recommended Citation
Joel Huber, Jason Bell, and W. Kip Viscusi,
Changes in Household Recycling Behavior: Evidence from Panel Data, 208 Ecological Economics. 107819
(2023)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-publications/1525