Exploring the determinants of separate waste collection from a spatial perspective

A virtuous waste management is one of the main pillars of EU environmental policies. The European directives aim at minimising the waste generation and increasing the separate waste collection level. As a Member State, Italy is not far from the European targets, nevertheless it is characterised by wide regional differences. Some areas, especially in the South, experienced waste management crises mainly due to a failure to properly collect and separate urban waste. This makes Italy a noteworthy case study in the waste management framework. Our main research question is to assess the effects of different factors (i.e., socio-economic and morphological backgrounds, institutional quality, and individual motivations) on citizens’ recycling behaviours. For this purpose, we analyse the determinants of separate waste collection by comparing two regions of Southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia, characterised by opposite results in terms of separate waste collection. By using spatial econometric models, we examine whether virtuous waste management performances are driven by political dynamics rather than extrinsic motivations, such as social influence or monetary incentives, or intrinsic motivations, such as proenvironmental attitudes. The main finding is that extrinsic motivations, although important, are not the only driving forces behind the good waste management performances. The intrinsic motivations also play a key role: specifically, individual pro-environmental attitudes, knowledge and commitment to differentiate. In general, Sardinia performs better than Sicily. This advantage is explained by a more effective combination of factors (local institutional quality, monetary incentives, and citizens’ good actions) and synergy between local governments and citizens.