Department of Public and Social Administration, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, People's Republic of China.
Waste Manag. 2010 Dec;30(12):2440-7. doi: 10.1016/j.wasman.2010.06.009. Epub 2010 Jul 8.
Efficacy of waste recycling is one of the key determinants of environmental sustainability of a city. Like other pro-environmental activities, waste recycling cannot be successfully accomplished by just one or two people, but only by a concerted effort of the community. The collective-action dilemma creates a common underlying difficulty in formulating workable solutions to many environmental problems. With a view to the non-excludability of the outcome, rationality drives people to free-ride efforts of others in waste recycling. To solve this free-rider problem, some scholars suggest the use of economic incentive. This article attempts to study the impacts of reward schemes on waste recycling behaviour of residents in 122 private housing estates in Hong Kong. The study is differentiable from the others as the latter mainly focus on domestic waste recycling in low-rise low-density housing while this one looks into the same in a high-rise high-density residential setting. According to the results of analyses on a set of aggregate data, reward schemes are found to have a significant positive relationship with the per-household weight of recyclables collected, keeping other things constant. The research findings suggest that economic incentives do work in promoting waste recycling in Hong Kong. Practical and policy implications follow.
废物回收的效果是城市环境可持续性的关键决定因素之一。像其他环保活动一样，废物回收不能仅靠一两个人就能成功完成，而是需要社区的共同努力。集体行动困境在制定许多环境问题的可行解决方案方面造成了共同的基本困难。由于结果不可排除，理性驱使人们在废物回收中搭他人努力的便车。为了解决这个搭便车问题，一些学者建议使用经济激励。本文试图研究奖励计划对香港 122 个私人屋苑居民废物回收行为的影响。与其他研究不同的是，后者主要关注低层低密度住宅的家庭废物回收，而本研究则着眼于高层高密度住宅环境中的相同问题。根据对一组汇总数据的分析结果，在其他条件不变的情况下，奖励计划与收集的每户可回收物重量之间存在显著的正相关关系。研究结果表明，经济激励在促进香港的废物回收方面确实有效。接下来是实际意义和政策意义。
