Assessing a Kerbside Recycling Scheme: A Quantitative and Willingness to Pay Case Study

This paper reports on the results of a contingent valuation survey of a kerbside recycling scheme in the village of Hethersett, South Norfolk, U.K. A “dichotomous choice” (DC) willingness-to-pay question was applied, the setting of the bid levels being determined from a pilot sample of respondents presented with an open-ended question. The study was unique in that, as the scheme was already operational, the respondents had a high level of information about the good that they were valuing, thus minimising many of the common problems facing contingent valuation studies. The survey was undertaken in conjunction with a recycling survey, allowing responses to be related to the use that people were making of the recycling scheme. It was found that socio-economic factors were important in determining whether or not people said they would pay for the scheme, but that, once they had accepted the payment principle, their response to the DC bid level depended mainly upon its magnitude, and, to a lesser extent, on the amount of recycling that they were already undertaking before the schemeʹs implementation.