Waste Prevention and Social Preferences: The Role of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations

Abstract

Though reduction is at the top of the waste management hierarchy, EU policies have historically introduced waste management incentives mainly concerning waste recovery and recycling, in addition to actions aimed at reducing disposal in landfills. Only very recently have EU policies started defining targets for waste reduction. Against this backdrop, we aim to examine whether individual behavior towards waste reduction is more strongly driven by extrinsic motivations such as social norms, or intrinsic motivations such as purely altruistic preferences. We exploit a large new survey that covers thousands of individuals for the EU27, to test the role of motivations when people are faced with collective management of the public good. We find that diverse motivations are behind the reduction of food waste: extrinsic motivations nevertheless increase the likelihood of producing more waste. Green consumption / recycling-oriented attitudes and individualistic thinking about waste management relate to 'waste producers'. This shows that in order to go beyond a recycling-oriented society towards reduction of the source of waste externality -its generation -the nature of social preferences matters. Behavior patterns leading to waste reduction are less socially oriented, less exposed to peer pressure and more reliant upon purely 'altruistic' social attitudes. Policy makers should learn from the relevant insights on social behavior we here address if our societies aim to fully integrate the idea of waste reduction alongside recycling in the future.

Food waste matters - A systematic review of household food waste practices and their policy implications

“…Also, eating leftovers is frequently associated with feelings of sacrifice and thrift for the good of the family (Cappellini, 2009;Cappellini and Parsons, 2012). Serving leftovers to children is sometimes accompanied with a sense of guilt for not caring properly for them (Cecere et al, 2014). Beyond that, people often find it boring to eat the same meal repeatedly (Cappellini, 2009) or have an aversion to reheating leftovers, because those are perceived to offer less quality and freshness.…”

“…Considerable amounts of food waste are given to pets (Wenlock et al, 1980). A focus on disposal practices, such as recycling or composting, often undermines people's motivation for waste prevention (Cecere et al, 2014;Tucker and Farrelly, 2015). For instance, people consider the food that is fed to animals or composted not as waste (Neff et al, 2015;Pearson et al, 2016;Porpino et al, 2015).…”

“…While most studies report a negative correlation between the amount of food wasted and age Stancu et al, 2016;Van Garde and Woodburn, 1987;Visschers et al, 2016), others indicate that older people waste more (Cecere et al, 2014). However, generally, people over 65 years of age tend to waste less food (Quested et al, 2013), which is commonly explained by different attitudes towards food and frugality as well as a greater knowledge of the impacts of food waste compared to younger individuals (Qi and Roe, 2016).…”

“…However, generally, people over 65 years of age tend to waste less food (Quested et al, 2013), which is commonly explained by different attitudes towards food and frugality as well as a greater knowledge of the impacts of food waste compared to younger individuals (Qi and Roe, 2016). The evidence is also mixed when it comes to gender: while some studies report that women produce less food waste (Cecere et al, 2014;Secondi et al, 2015), others indicate that gender does not have a significant effect , that females waste more (Visschers et al, 2016), or that if a woman is responsible for grocery shopping in the household, more food is wasted (Koivupuro et al, 2012;Silvennoinen et al, 2014).…”

Promoting Sustainable Waste Prevention Strategy Activities and Planning in Relation to the Waste Framework Directive in Insular Communities

“…Although, the European Commission has published the Waste Framework Directive (WFD) as well as several other regulations focusing on waste management , those directives and/or regulations have only brought limited changes within the key objective of reducing waste generation (EEA 2009(EEA , 2013. Mostly, the waste management plans are focusing on recycling and on waste disposal (Cecere et al 2014). According to , we have a continuous and alarming increase of waste volume in each country and per capita also.…”