IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/sustdv/v16y2008i1p44-55.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of social capital on regional waste recycling

Author

Listed:
  • Tsung-hsiu Tsai

    (National University of Kaohsiung, Applied Economics, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Republic of China)

Abstract

Waste recycling is a prominent indicator of environmental sustainability in the pursuit of sustainable development. Exploring the determinants of waste recycling is therefore of importance to policy makers. Current research in recycling has explored several important factors to assess household participation in recycling. The local community policy towards recycling is regarded as an important factor, as it can assist households in collecting recyclables as well as implementing innovative recycling programmes. In this paper we look again at the role of community in recycling by asking to what extent a region's degree of social coherence, measured as social capital, would influence its recycling rate. Using Taiwan as a case study we applied the fixed effect model in panel data analysis to estimate the impact of social capital on the regional recycling rate. The estimation shows that the elasticity of social capital to regional recycling rate is about 0.38-0.43 at the 5% significance level. This provides evidence that a region's social relations are highly correlated with its recycling performance; a region's degree of social capital appears to increase its recycling rate. This finding implies that a successful recycling programme requires interactions between society and the environment. Enhancing a region's degree of social capital can also be incorporated as a part of that region's recycling programme. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Tsung-hsiu Tsai, 2008. "The impact of social capital on regional waste recycling," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(1), pages 44-55.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:16:y:2008:i:1:p:44-55
    DOI: 10.1002/sd.326
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/sd.326
    File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sd.326?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pretty, Jules & Ward, Hugh, 2001. "Social Capital and the Environment," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 209-227, February.
    2. Joel Sobel, 2002. "Can We Trust Social Capital?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(1), pages 139-154, March.
    3. Steven C. Deller & Tsung-Hsiu (Sue) Tsai & David W. Marcouiller & Donald B.K. English, 2001. "The Role of Amenities and Quality of Life In Rural Economic Growth," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 83(2), pages 352-365.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Iacopo Odoardi & Chiara Burlina & Alessandro Crociata, 2023. "Pro-Environmental Determinants of Waste Separation: Does the Interaction of Human and Social Capital Matter? Evidence from Italian Provinces," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-20, March.
    2. Agovino, M. & Casaccia, M. & Crociata, A. & Sacco, P.L., 2019. "European Regional Development Fund and pro-environmental behaviour. The case of Italian separate waste collection," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 36-50.
    3. Leonzio Rizzo & Riccardo Secomandi, 2020. "Pay as you throw: evidence on the incentive to recycle," Working papers 88, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    4. FIORILLO, Damiano & SENATORE, Luigi, 2016. "Self Image and Environmental Attitude and Behavior," CELPE Discussion Papers 140, CELPE - CEnter for Labor and Political Economics, University of Salerno, Italy.
    5. Damiano Fiorillo, 2013. "Household waste recycling: national survey evidence from Italy," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(8), pages 1125-1151, October.
    6. Dohyung Kim & Sun Go, 2020. "Human Capital and Environmental Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-14, June.
    7. Joel A. Martínez-Regalado & Cinthia Leonora Murillo-Avalos & Purificación Vicente-Galindo & Mónica Jiménez-Hernández & José Luis Vicente-Villardón, 2021. "Using HJ-Biplot and External Logistic Biplot as Machine Learning Methods for Corporate Social Responsibility Practices for Sustainable Development," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(20), pages 1-16, October.
    8. Paolo Esposito & Spiridione Lucio Dicorato & Emanuele Doronzo, 2021. "The effect of ownership on sustainable development and environmental policy in urban waste management: An explicatory empirical analysis of Italian municipal corporations," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 1067-1079, February.
    9. Fei, Fan & Qu, Lili & Wen, Zongguo & Xue, Yanyan & Zhang, Huanan, 2016. "How to integrate the informal recycling system into municipal solid waste management in developing countries: Based on a China’s case in Suzhou urban area," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 74-86.
    10. José M. Alonso & Rhys Andrews, 2019. "Governance by targets and the performance of cross‐sector partnerships: Do partner diversity and partnership capabilities matter?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 556-579, April.
    11. Isabel Gallego‐Alvarez & Eduardo Ortas & José Luis Vicente‐Villardón & Igor Álvarez Etxeberria, 2017. "Institutional Constraints, Stakeholder Pressure and Corporate Environmental Reporting Policies," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(6), pages 807-825, September.
    12. Massimiliano Agovino & Maria Ferrara & Antonio Garofalo, 2017. "The driving factors of separate waste collection in Italy: a multidimensional analysis at provincial level," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 19(6), pages 2297-2316, December.
    13. Weber, Gabriel & Cabras, Ignazio & Calaf-Forn, Maria & Puig-Ventosa, Ignasi & D'Alisa, Giacomo, 2019. "Promoting Waste Degrowth and Environmental Justice at a Local Level: The Case of Unit-Pricing Schemes in Spain," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 306-317.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bernard, Tanguy & Frölich, Markus & Landmann, Andreas & Unte, Pia Naima & Viceisza, Angelino & Wouterse, Fleur, 2015. "Building Trust in Rural Producer Organizations in Senegal: Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial," IZA Discussion Papers 9207, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Gong, Yazhen & Bull, Gary & Baylis, Kathy, 2010. "Participation in the world's first clean development mechanism forest project: The role of property rights, social capital and contractual rules," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(6), pages 1292-1302, April.
    3. Ishihara, Hiroe & Pascual, Unai, 2009. "Social capital in community level environmental governance: A critique," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 1549-1562, March.
    4. Ashleigh Keene & Steven C. Deller, 2015. "Evidence of the Environmental Kuznets’ Curve among US Counties and the Impact of Social Capital," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 38(4), pages 358-387, October.
    5. Anura Amarasinghe & Gerard D'Souza & Cheryl Brown & Tatiana Borisova, 2006. "A Spatial Analysis of Obesity in West Virginia," Working Papers Working Paper 2006-13, Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University.
    6. Haobin Fan & Xuanyi Nie, 2020. "Impacts of Layoffs and Government Assistance on Mental Health during COVID-19: An Evidence-Based Study of the United States," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-23, September.
    7. Eric Fesselmeyer & Kiat Ying Seah, 2018. "Individual Payoffs and the Effect of Homeownership on Social Capital Investment," Journal of Housing Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1), pages 59-78, January.
    8. Katarzyna Growiec & Jakub Growiec, 2016. "Bridging Social Capital and Individual Earnings: Evidence for an Inverted U," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 601-631, June.
    9. Roberta Dessì & Salvatore Piccolo, 2008. "Two is Company, N is a Crowd? Merchant Guilds and Social Capital," CSEF Working Papers 202, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy, revised 12 Jul 2009.
    10. Yatish Kumar & Priya Bhakat, 2022. "Social Capital in Old-Age and the Role of the Social Marginalisation," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 163(1), pages 371-388, August.
    11. Hodder Rupert, 2016. "Global South and North: Why Informality Matters," New Global Studies, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 113-131, July.
    12. repec:rri:wpaper:200803 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Tobias Böhmelt & Jürg Vollenweider, 2015. "Information flows and social capital through linkages: the effectiveness of the CLRTAP network," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 105-123, May.
    14. Elert, Niklas & Henrekson, Magnus, 2017. "Entrepreneurship and Institutions: A Bidirectional Relationship," Working Paper Series 1153, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 05 May 2017.
    15. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:3:y:2007:i:68:p:1-7 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Soumyananda Dinda, 2014. "Inclusive growth through creation of human and social capital," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 41(10), pages 878-895, October.
    17. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, 2006. "Environmental Morale and Motivation," CREMA Working Paper Series 2006-17, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    18. Bauernschuster, Stefan & Falck, Oliver & Heblich, Stephan, 2010. "Social capital access and entrepreneurship," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 821-833, December.
    19. Fernando Ubeda & Alvaro Mendez & Francisco Javier Forcadell, 2024. "Sustainable banking and trust in the global South," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 15(S1), pages 34-44, March.
    20. Põllumäe, Priit & Lilleleht, Ando & Korjus, Henn, 2016. "Institutional barriers in forest owners' cooperation: The case of Estonia," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 9-16.
    21. Dufhues, Thomas & Buchenrieder, Gertrud & Munkung, Nuchanata, 2012. "Individual social capital and access to formal credit in Thailand," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 123401, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    22. Cabrales, Antonio & Calvó-Armengol, Antoni & Zenou, Yves, 2011. "Social interactions and spillovers," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 339-360, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:16:y:2008:i:1:p:44-55. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-1719 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.