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Environmental Law

Vanderbilt University Law School

Series

Recycling

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

The Hierarchy And Performance Of State Recycling And Deposit Laws, W. Kip Viscusi, Caroline Cecot Jan 2022

The Hierarchy And Performance Of State Recycling And Deposit Laws, W. Kip Viscusi, Caroline Cecot

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

States can foster recycling of waste materials through a variety of policies. The majority of the states have recycling laws for waste products such as glass, plastic, cans, and paper. These laws vary in terms of stringency. The hierarchy we developed orders the laws as follows: laws that make recycling mandatory, laws that require the provision of recycling opportunities, laws that require the development of a recycling plan, and laws that specify a recycling goal. Based on national recycling data with over 400,000 observations, we find that the amount of recycling households undertake increases with the degree of stringency of …


Promoting Recycling: Private Values, Social Norms, And Economic Incentives, W. Kip Viscusi Jan 2011

Promoting Recycling: Private Values, Social Norms, And Economic Incentives, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Individual behaviors that benefit the environment are potentially influenced by personal values of environmental quality, social norms that encourage proenvironmental actions, and economic incentives. Economic incentives often loom particularly large, including those that result from environmental policies. Less well understood are the respective roles of private values and social norms. Do people undertake proenvironmental actions more out of their personal valuations of the environment that might be characterized as warm glow effects or from the social norms that reinforce proenvironmental behaviors?