Pro-environmental interventions and behavioral spillovers: Evidence from organic waste sorting in Sweden

This paper evaluates the behavioral spillover effect of organic waste sorting on households' waste reduction. We use an administrative household-level dataset on residential waste from a Swedish municipality. To identify the spillover effects, we utilize a natural experiment triggered by the staggered implementation of a policy that introduced home-based organic waste sorting bins. We find a substantial positive spillover effect of waste sorting on waste reduction. The effect, however, disappears over time.