Impacts of pecuniary and non-pecuniary information on pro-environmental behavior: A household waste collection and disposal program in Surabaya city

• Published in: Waste management (Elmsford) Vol. 89; pp. 322 - 335
• Main Authors: Setiawan, Rulli Pratiwi, Kaneko, Shinji, Kawata, Keisuke
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Ltd 15.04.2019
• Subjects: Cities; Household waste management; Indonesia; Information strategy; Pro-environmental behavior; Randomized conjoint analysis; Randomized controlled trial; Recycling; Refuse Disposal; Waste Management; Willingness to pay; Cities; Indonesia; Information strategy; Pro-environmental behavior; Randomized conjoint analysis; Household waste management; Willingness to pay; Randomized controlled trial
• ISSN: 0956-053X; 1879-2456
• DOI: 10.1016/j.wasman.2019.04.015

•We test whether different types of information strategy can influence pro-environmental behaviors.•We compare the impacts of pecuniary and non-pecuniary information on waste management preferences.•We assess public support with conjoint analysis in a randomized experiment setting.•Non-pecuniary information has a positive impact on the non-organic separation attribute.•Pecuniary information increases the willingness to pay by 20.5% relative to that of no information. Information strategies are increasingly used to promote pro-environmental behavior through changing perceptions, knowledge, awareness and norms. While some studies have argued that information strategies are ineffective, others have reported, that information strategies can have immediate impacts. Information strategies are particularly relevant in developing countries such as Indonesia because of their low-cost and immediate impact. The objective of this paper is to compare the impacts of pecuniary and non-pecuniary information on stated preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for an improved waste collection and disposal program. Stated preferences were elicited by using a randomized conjoint field experiment. The information treatments were in the form of posters and were randomly assigned to the respondents. Among the seven attributes used in the conjoint analysis, the separation of non-organic waste and recycling as an intermediate processing technology had significant positive effects on the rate of support. Moreover, pecuniary information was found to directly influence household preference for payment for an improved waste collection and disposal program while affecting none of the other design elements of waste management services. In the reference case in which the no information treatment was applied, the lower bound of the mean WTP for marginalized improvements in a waste collection and disposal program was estimated to be USD 14.65. The study also found that pecuniary information increased WTP by 20.5%, whereas non-pecuniary information had a negative but statistically insignificant effect on WTP.