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Initiating and sustaining household plastic waste recycling: evidence from personal norm and self-efficacy interventions in Western India

Subodh Vinchurkar & Sarthak Gaurav

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management2026https://doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2026.2621311article
ABDC B
Weight
0.50

Abstract

Unrecycled plastic waste presents a critical environmental and climate challenge, and the IPCC has identified promoting recycling behavior as an important policy lever. However, evidence on the long-term effectiveness of recycling interventions in general, and particularly in the Indian context, is limited. This study reports the results of a 38-week field experiment conducted in western India assessing the sustained impact of two internal-motivation-targeting interventions on household plastic recycling behavior. While the self-efficacy intervention group showed a significant 12.14% long-term increase in the propensity to recycle, the personal norm intervention group showed a 22.14% increase. The interventions combined informational and communication elements with structural measures, such as increasing collection frequency from biweekly to weekly in the intervention groups. We also provide indicators of scalability, cost-benefit, and effect attribution across intervention components, interpreted with due caution. The findings offer actionable insights for designing recycling behavioral intervention policies in resource-constrained contexts.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2026.2621311

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@article{subodh2026,
  title        = {{Initiating and sustaining household plastic waste recycling: evidence from personal norm and self-efficacy interventions in Western India}},
  author       = {Subodh Vinchurkar & Sarthak Gaurav},
  journal      = {Journal of Environmental Planning and Management},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2026.2621311},
}

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Initiating and sustaining household plastic waste recycling: evidence from personal norm and self-efficacy interventions in Western India

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.