Understanding waste sorting policy and waste sorting behavior: Evidence from China

Household waste sorting plays a positive role in improving the efficiency of resource reuse, promoting green development and realizing the carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals. The Chinese government is implementing policy to incentivize and nudge residents in waste sorting. Understanding waste sorting policy and waste sorting behavior in China is very significant. The analytical logic is to first introduce what the waste sorting policy is, and then explain why residents carry out waste sorting from the perspectives of external incentives and internal motivations. In the context of China, for the first study, we analyze the policy text data and identify the trends and variations for policy instruments in waste sorting policy. For the second study, we study the effect of external incentives on waste sorting behavior of residents. For the third and fourth studies, we study the effect of intrinsic motivations on waste sorting behavior of residents. The contribution is to improve the government’s waste management ability.