Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/229150 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
GLO Discussion Paper No. 772
Publisher: 
Global Labor Organization (GLO), Essen
Abstract: 
We evaluate the effectiveness of placing microchips on the bags for the curbside collection in reducing the unsorted urban solid waste and increasing the fraction recycled. The microchip allows the waste collection company to identify the users that left the bags on the curb and check whether they properly sorted the waste. Our study is carried out in the Italian province of Macerata (Marche, Italy), where the bag microchips were introduced only in some municipalities in 2013. Exploiting monthly information on waste collection and natural experiment methods, we find that, two years after the programme start, the bag microchip increased the fraction recycled by 3-4:5 percentage points and decreased the monthly unsorted waste by 1-2 kilograms per capita.
Subjects: 
Recycling behaviour
unsorted waste
microchip bags
natural experiment
difference-in-differences
synthetic control method
JEL: 
C23
D78
Q53
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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