Factors influencing municipal recycling in the Global South: The case of Chile

One of the targets from the Sustainable Development Goals is by 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse. The indicators defined to measure progress are the recycling rate and Tons of material recycled. Paradoxically, very little is known about these indicators and the factors influencing them outside rich countries, where recycling has been long ago adopted. This study provides the first analysis of factors linked to separate collection rates and kilograms recycled per capita from actually existing municipal recycling services in a Latin American country. Thanks to primary data collection, it is possible to characterise and analyse the Chilean case. By 2018, barely above half of the 345 local governments had implemented recycling. Furthermore, even among municipalities that have been recycling for at least 5 years, separate collection is much lower than in any OECD country with available data. Econometric models are used to test nine different hypotheses about factors influencing municipal recycling. Existence of kerbside separate collection, duration of recycling programs and per capita spending on waste management are found to be positively and significantly linked to separate collection rates. Collection frequency of landfill waste is significant and negatively linked to higher separate collection rates within municipalities, but the same link is not significant between local governments. Four of the Chilean regions are found to be significantly lagging behind compared to the Santiago Metropolitan Region. Variables that are not significant are existence of organic recycling, population density, total population and poverty rate.