The Effect of Door-to-Door on Separate Collection of Plastic Packaging: Evidence from Catalonia

In this article, we estimate the causal effect of the Door-to-Door waste collection policy on the collection of plastic waste in Catalonia. We use municipality-level data on the share of separately collected light packaging and apply a Difference-in-Differences framework. We find that Door-to-Door i...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Bel i Queralt, Germà, 1963-, Bühler, Joël
Tipo de documento: artigo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Data de publicação:2025
País:España
Recursos:Universidad de Barcelona
Repositório:Dipòsit Digital de la UB
OAI Identifier:oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/222347
Acesso em linha:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/222347
Access Level:Acceso aberto
Palavra-chave:Embalatges de plàstic
Reciclatge de residus
Desenvolupament sostenible
Plastics in packaging
Waste recycling
Sustainable development
Descrição
Resumo:In this article, we estimate the causal effect of the Door-to-Door waste collection policy on the collection of plastic waste in Catalonia. We use municipality-level data on the share of separately collected light packaging and apply a Difference-in-Differences framework. We find that Door-to-Door increased the share of separated light packaging by 80% compared to untreated units at the end of the sample period. Furthermore, our evidence indicates that there are no differences of Door-to-Door designs with source-separation of light packaging from other recyclable waste components compared to those where light packaging waste is collected with other materials and separated post-source. These findings highlight that Door-to-Door can be a highly effective measure to increase separate collection of light packaging, a precondition for ambitious plastics recycling goals legislated by policy makers.