The Effect of Door-to-Door on Separate Collection of Plastic Packaging: Evidence from Catalonia

Abstract

In this article, we estimate the causal effect of the Door-to-Door waste collection policy on the separate collection of plastic waste in Catalonia. We use municipality-level data on the share of separately collected plastics and apply a Difference-in-Differences framework. We can demonstrate that Door-to-Door increased the share of separated plastics by around 75% compared to untreated units at the end of the sample period. Furthermore, our suggestive evidence indicates that there are no differences of Door-to-Door designs with source-separation of plastics from other recyclable waste components compared to those where plastics are collected with other materials and separated post-source. These findings highlight that Door-to-Door can be a highly effective measure to increase separate collection of plastics, a precondition for ambitious plastics recycling goals legislated by policy makers.