Journal
JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
Volume 124, Issue -, Pages 8-16Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2013.03.019
Keywords
E-waste; Disposal bans; Multinomial logit; Public policy
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [DMII 0223894]
- University of California Toxic Substances Research and Teaching Program [UC 44157]
- Research and Education in Green Materials (REGM) at UC-Irvine
- School of Social Ecology at UC-Irvine
- Newkirk Center for Science and Society
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To deal with the inadequate disposal of e-waste, many states have instituted bans on its disposal in municipal landfills. However, the effectiveness of e-waste bans does not seem to have been analyzed yet. This paper starts addressing this gap. Using data from a survey of U.S. households, we estimate multivariate logit models to explain past disposal behavior by households of broken/obsolete (junk) cell phones and disposal intentions for junk TVs. Our explanatory variables include factors summarizing general awareness of environmental issues, pro-environmental behavior in the past year, attitudes toward recycling small electronics (for the cell phones model only), socio-economic and demographic characteristics, and the presence of state e-waste bans. We find that California's Cell Phone Recycling Act had a significant and positive impact on the recycling of junk cell phones; however, state disposal bans for junk TVs seem to have been mostly ineffective, probably because they were poorly publicized and enforced. Their effectiveness could be enhanced by providing more information about e-waste recycling to women, and more generally to adults under 60. Given the disappointing performance of policies implemented to-date to enhance the collection of e-waste, it may be time to explore economic instruments such as deposit-refund systems. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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