Abstract:The aim of this paper is to suggest and discuss policy instruments that could lead towards a more sustainable waste management. The paper is based on evaluations from a large scale multi-disciplinary Swedish research program. The evaluations focus on environmental and economic impacts as well as social acceptance. The focus is on the Swedish waste management system but the results should be relevant also for other countries. Through the assessments and lessons learned during the research program we conclude that several policy instruments can be effective and possible to implement. Particularly, we put forward the following policy instruments: "Information"; "Compulsory recycling of recyclable materials"; "Weight-based waste fee in combination OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2013, 5 842 with information and developed recycling systems"; "Mandatory labeling of products containing hazardous chemicals", "Advertisements on request only and other waste minimization measures"; and "Differentiated VAT and subsidies for some services". Compulsory recycling of recyclable materials is the policy instrument that has the largest potential for decreasing the environmental impacts with the configurations studied here. The effects of the other policy instruments studied may be more limited and they typically need to be implemented in combination in order to have more significant impacts. Furthermore, policy makers need to take into account market and international aspects when implementing new instruments. In the more long term perspective, the above set of policy instruments may also need to be complemented with more transformational policy instruments that can significantly decrease the generation of waste.

According to our study, based on interviews with households in a residential area in Sweden, uncertainty is a cultural barrier to improved recycling. Four causes of uncertainty are identified. Firstly, professional categories not matching cultural categories-people easily discriminate between certain categories (e.g., materials such as plastic and paper) but not between others (e.g., packaging and "non-packaging"). Thus a frequent cause of uncertainty is that the basic categories of the waste recycling system do not coincide with the basic categories used in everyday life. Challenged habits-source separation in everyday life is habitual, but when a habit is challenged, by a particular element or feature of the waste system, uncertainty can arise. Lacking fractions-some kinds of items cannot be left for recycling and this makes waste collection incomplete from the user's point of view and in turn lowers the credibility of the system. Missing or contradictory rules of thumb-the above causes seem to be particularly relevant if no motivating principle or rule of thumb (within the context of use) is successfully conveyed to the user. This paper discusses how reducing uncertainty can improve recycling.

Despite ongoing changes in housing construction around parking requirements, few studies have been undertaken on travel practice and vehicle ownership once homes have been built in line with new requirements and occupied. This study focused on the experience and travel practices of residents in two specific cases involving new requirements in Sweden. It was based on interviews and questionnaires with residents before and after they moved into the two new blocks of apartments. A relatively restricted supply of parking was compensated for with subsidized mobility services for the residents, e.g., car and bike (sharing) clubs. The results indicated a decrease in car ownership in both blocks, as well as a decrease in the frequency of car travel in one of them. There were indications that use of public transport had increased. Our analysis illustrates the roles that parking and mobility services played over time in establishing the residents’ travel habits. The process that shaped the new residents’ car ownership and travel patterns was, in part, quite slow and unspectacular compared with the intentions and expectations of the stakeholders involved as regards to how car ownership and travel habits would change. We discuss a spectrum of everyday life conditions, which together with parking requirements and mobility services can stimulate the growth of urban mobility practices other than those based on private car ownership.

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Abstract-How could use of ICTs make transport systems in large cities sustainable? To what degree would then everyday patterns of action, in which use of ICT is becoming increasingly integrated, be an effective force in such sustainable development? In this paper we use own and other ethnographic studies of how people travel and plan their travel in large Nordic cities and explore a couple of scientific articles built around scenarios of sustainable development of ICT-supported transport in large cities. In the scenarios the role of ICT was most prominently for travel planning, collective ownership and/or access to vehicles, payment systems and traffic management for environmental purposes. Two of the scenario articles were selected for a closer analysis. In the ethnographic material sub-practices, critical for transport in everyday life, were identified. The aim was to show if and how proposed solutions in the sustainability scenarios are possible and meaningful for urban dwellers to integrate into their everyday travel practice. We found that scenarios of this kind might benefit from being supplemented with certain components. We discuss how actors that currently develop traffic management, mobility and travel planning services are somewhat blind to some significant parts of the whole spectrum of relevant social practices. We also discuss how this could provide conditions for actors and stakeholders to highlight and facilitate sub-practices with ICT use and in line with sustainable development. We tentatively discuss and propose that authorities responsible for urban transport set goals for maintaining and spreading certain practices, related to sustainability impacts. In this way the development of everyday social practice among city residents could be supported as an effective force in the development of the city's transport system, specifically including the development of ICT in relation to transportation.