We explore the power of behavioral economic insights to influence the level of households’ recycling and Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) by examining the effectiveness of a green nudge, the adoption of a Clear Bag Policy that was implemented in 2015 in a mid-size urban municipality in Canada. Using a Regression Discontinuity (RD) Design on universe administrative data, our analysis shows that this green nudge promoted recycling, and reduced both refuse and total MSW. While recycling increased by 15 percent, total MSW decreased by 27 percent overall between August 2015 and July 2017. Our results also demonstrate heterogeneity in response to a Clear Bag Policy across neighborhoods with varying socioeconomic indicators. Our findings suggest that green nudges can serve as effective policy instruments in devising future environment policies.

我们通过研究绿色推动力的有效性，2015年在中型城市实施的透明袋政策的采用，探索行为经济学洞见力对家庭回收利用和城市固体废物（MSW）水平的影响。加拿大的直辖市。通过对Universe管理数据使用回归不连续性（RD）设计，我们的分析表明，这种绿色微动促进了回收，并减少了垃圾和总MSW。在2015年8月至2017年7月期间，虽然回收利用增加了15％，但城市固体废弃物总量总体下降了27％。我们的结果还表明，针对社会经济指标各不相同的各个社区，我们采取了“清除垃圾袋政策”，以应对这种情况。我们的研究结果表明，在推动未来的环境政策制定过程中，绿色微调可以作为有效的政策手段。