The influence of local waste management culture on individual recycling behavior

Abstract The transition towards sustainable consumption and production requires public engagement support. In this context, understanding the determinants of individual pro-environmental behavior can assist in sustainability policy design, contribute to explaining cross-country regional differences its implementation effectiveness. This paper examines influence local waste management culture on recycling behavior. To isolate impact location-specific norms, habits traditions comprising from confounding effect contemporaneous economic social conditions, we use data over 40,000 domestic immigrants Greece. Estimating models relating activity region current residence practices origin, find robust evidence that origin have quantitatively statistically significant behavior: a 10 percentage point increase prevalence increases probability subject recycles by 0.9 points. results suggest locally prevailing norms independently economic, environmental circumstances. Designing effective may need account for variation preferences, encourage investment development culture.