The good and the bad: Identifying homogeneous groups of municipalities in terms of separate waste collection determinants in Italy

The European Commission identifies separate waste collection as a primary factor in its sustainable development strategy. The EU Member States are expected to achieve a separate waste collection rate of 50% by 2020. Although Italy is not very far from such target, it features wide regional variation in the extent of separate collection. Municipal administrations are the key managerial units for the implementation of the environmental policy. By means of the Classification and Regression Tree Analysis, this work assembles Italian municipalities (NUTS-4) into homogenous groups, that share common characteristics with respect to geographic, economic and socio-cultural covariates. Three benchmark regions are identified, i.e. Veneto, Sardinia and much of Campania. The results achieved in these areas depend on the joint action of citizens and institutions and may inspire local-level waste management policies in other areas of the country.