Waste disposal and households’ Heterogeneity. Identifying factors shaping attitudes towards source-separated recycling in Bogotá, Colombia Alcides J. Padilla a,⇑ , Juan C. Trujillo b a Programa de Economía, Universidad del Atlántico, Puerto Colombia, Atlántico, Colombia b Environment Department, University of York, Wentworth Way, Heslington, York, YO10 5NG, United Kingdom article info Article history: Received 9 January 2017 Revised 27 November 2017 Accepted 28 November 2017 Available online xxxx abstract Solid waste management in many cities of developing countries is not environmentally sustainable. People traditionally dispose of their solid waste in unsuitable urban areas like sidewalks and satellite dumpsites. This situation nowadays has become a serious public health problem in big Latin American conurbations. Among these densely-populated urban spaces, the Colombia’s capital and main city stands out as a special case. In this study, we aim to identify the factors that shape the attitudes towards source- separated recycling among households in Bogotá. Using data from the Colombian Department of Statistics and Bogotá’s multi-purpose survey, we estimated a multivariate Probit model. In general, our results show that the higher the household’s socioeconomic class, the greater its effort for separating solid wastes. Likewise, our findings also allowed us to characterize household profiles regarding solid waste separation and considering each socioeconomic class. Among these profiles, we found that at lower socioeconomic classes, the attitudes towards solid waste separation are influenced by the use of Internet, the membership to an environmentalist organization, the level of education of the head of household and the homeownership. Hence, increasing the education levels within the poorest segment of the popula- tion, promoting affordable housing policies and facilitating Internet access for the vulnerable population could reinforce households’ attitudes towards a greater source-separated recycling effort. Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Separating solid waste is a fundamental condition to reversing its negative environmental impacts (Adeniran et al., 2017; Akil et al., 2015). Globally, the growing waste production threatens public health and city environments in developing countries (Dedinec et al., 2015; Vergara et al., 2015). It is expected that in less than a decade, solid waste production (measured in tons/day) in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean grew 160% and 66%, respectively. 1 These figures are quite high compared with other regions of the world. 2 An important fraction of the total municipal solid waste is generated by the households (Suthar and Singh, 2015). In fact, the amount of household waste produced has been increasing in developing countries as a direct result of rapid popula- tion growth and urbanization (Ghani et al., 2013; Gundupalli et al., 2017). Due to the absence of state-led planning controls, waste recy- cling at the household level is becoming a worrisome issue in developing countries. Espinoza et al. (2010) find that in developing countries separation of solid waste at the household level is sel- dom practiced. These authors reveal that only 3.6% of Colombian cities perform source-separated recycling. 3 Comparatively, this level of recycling at the source is below a middle-income country, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2017.11.052 0956-053X/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author at: Programa de Economía, Universidad del Atlántico, Kilómetro 7, antigua vía a Puerto Colombia, Atlántico, Colombia E-mail addresses: alcidespadilla@mail.uniatlantico.edu.co (A. J. Padilla), juan. trujillo@york.ac.uk (J.C. Trujillo). 1 Solid waste is defined as ‘‘any object, material, substance or element, mainly solid resulting from the consumption or use of a good in domestic, industrial, commercial, institutional or service activities, that the generator presents for collection by the person providing the public cleaning service. It is also considered as solid waste, that from the sweeping and cleaning of public areas and roads, lawn cutting and pruning of tree” (CONPES 3874, 2016; p. 63). Note: Translation of the authors from document in Spanish. 2 The countries of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have an average solid waste generation of 0.45 and 0.65 kg/per capita/day, respectively. Latin America and the Caribbean region’s solid urban waste projections for 2025 are above most regions of the world (Africa 0.85%, East Asia and Pacific 1.5%, Europe and Central Asia 1.5%, Middle East and North Africa 1.43%, and South Asia 0.77%), except for OECD countries (Hoornweg & Bhada-Tata, 2012; p. 10). 3 For our purposes, source-separated recycling is defined as the process of separating solid waste by type at home so they can be recycled. Waste Management xxx (2017) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Waste Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wasman Please cite this article in press as: J. Padilla, A., Trujillo, J.C. Waste disposal and households’ Heterogeneity. Identifying factors shaping attitudes towards source-separated recycling in Bogotá, Colombia. Waste Management (2017), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2017.11.052