Impact of charging and reward-penalty policies on household recycling: A case study in China

With the drastically growing amount of household waste in China, increasing the recovery rate of household recyclable waste (HRW) is important for creating an environmentally friendly and green future. The waste charging policy, pay as you throw (PAYT), is widely used in developed countries, but it is not applicable in China with some unique features of waste recycling. Particularly, residents in China can sell HRW to formal recyclers, or throw waste to a waste sit under the supervision of classification superintendents (CSs). In this study, we propose an improved pay as a site throws (PAST) policy. And two complementary policies, the reward policy (RP) and reward-penalty policy (RPP), are considered to increase the feasibility of PAST. An integrated HRW recycling system model is developed, which combines the system dynamics (SD) approach and game theory to explore the impacts of these policies on the proportion of classified waste, recovery rates, recycling prices, profits, and social profit. Results show that (1) the PAST policy effectively promotes the waste classification proportion and HRW recovery rate. (2) An RP or RPP should be implemented along with the PAST policy to compensate for CSs' losses. (3) These polices should be applied for CSs in the early stage which can reduce the HRW recycling price, combat the likelihood of residents selling HRW, and promote waste classification. (4) When they are applied for recycling companies in the late stage more social profit is obtained. This study provides more targeted policies for China's HRW recycling measures. It also provides insights for HRW policy making in other developing countries.

Automated summary

With the increasing amount of household waste in China, improving the recovery rate of household recyclable waste is crucial for a sustainable and green future. This study proposes an improved pay as a site throws policy and considers the implementation of reward and reward-penalty policies to increase its feasibility. The results demonstrate that these policies effectively promote waste classification and HRW recovery.