Committing to Keep Clean: Nudging Complements Standard Policy Measures to Reduce Illegal Urban Garbage Disposal in a Neighborhood With High Levels of Social Cohesion

Abstract

Illegal garbage disposals are a persistent urban problem, resulting in high clean-up costs, and nuisance and decreased satisfaction with the neighborhood among residents. We compared three adjacent city-areas in Rotterdam in the Netherlands which, for 2 weeks, either: (1) no action to decrease illegal garbage disposals was taken; (2) standard door-to-door canvassing was carried out; or (3) door-to-door canvassing was enriched with several nudges, most importantly a commitment-nudge. The nudge treatment proved highly effective, reducing illegal disposals at post-test and follow-up (2 months later) with two-thirds, resulting in a very large effect size (d = 2.60). At post-test, standard door-to-door canvassing did not differ from the control treatment, but at follow-up results were comparable to the nudging-treatment. This could, however, be due to spill-over effects. Using a commitment nudge thus proved highly effective in decreasing illegal garbage disposals, however, effects might be specific to neighborhoods with strong social cohesion.

Comprehensive Evaluation of the Behavioral Insights Group Rotterdam

“…Policy outcomes refer to the consequences of policy cases for municipal practices and how they relate to three goals that were defined for BIG’R at its start (Figure 1). For instance, one policy case helped to achieve better cost-effectiveness of municipal services by reducing clean-up costs for garbage (Merkelbach et al, 2021). According to proposers, some but not all policy cases contributed to achieving the goals of BIG’R (Table 1).…”

Nudging for environmental sustainability. behavioral insights from an on-field experiment: #iNUDGEBarletta

“…A reduction of litter by 50% and of cigarette butts thrown on the street by about 36% is an important result to reflect on. Moreover, as natural experiment, the strength of this research lays on the fact that residents were unaware of the research experiment, so increasing its ecological validity (Merkelbach et al, 2021).…”

Public managers’ trust in citizens and their preferences for behavioral policy instruments: evidence from a mixed-methods study

“…The use of behavioral policy instruments in local-level policymaking is on the rise (Feitsma, 2019;Strassheim & Beck, 2019;Dewies et al, 2022). Local governments increasingly rely on behavioral policy instruments to nudge citizens to, for example, stop littering (Merkelbach et al, 2021), drive safely (Graf, 2019) and pay their fines and taxes on time (John & Blume, 2018;Vainre et al, 2020;Raymaekers & Migchelbrink, 2021). Furthermore, smart cities increasingly combine technology and behavioral insights to implement data-driven nudges that encourage healthier and more sustainable life styles (Gandy & Nemorin, 2019;Ranchordás, 2020).…”