Microchipped bags and waste sorting

We evaluate the effectiveness of attaching microchips to bags for curbside collection in reducing unsorted urban solid waste and increasing the fraction of recycled waste. The microchip enables the local police to identify the users that have left the bags on the curb and check whether they have sorted the waste properly. Our study is carried out in the Italian province of Macerata (Marche, Italy), where the microchipped bags were introduced only in some municipalities in 2013. Exploiting monthly information on waste collection and natural experiment methods, we find that, 2 years after the program started, the microchipped bag system had increased the fraction of recycled waste by 3–4.5 percentage points and decreased the monthly unsorted waste by 1–2 kilograms per capita.