ABSTRACT
Household recycling, a crucial point in the overall waste management chain, is enjoying increased popularity among policymakers as a means to reduce environmental impacts and budgetary burdens. This chapter focuses only on cities that have already committed to waste management efforts that are relatively technologically advanced, policy challenges being faced by these cities can help illustrate to other cities how to better understand the urgency of waste management and policy alternatives. The puzzle of incentivizing households to embrace recycling efforts relates to fundamental questions about the nature of public policy, including the ability of governments not only to regulate behavior forcefully but also to inspire individual action in a persuasive way. The chapter investigates household recycling in Shanghai and Singapore, cities that have entered a middle or late-middle stage of development during which tensions are evident between old and new models of waste management.
