Getting Consumers to Return E-waste: Evidence from Field and Lab Experiments

Abstract

Problem definition: Driven by consumer and regulatory demands, companies seek guidance on how to get consumers to return electronic waste (e-waste) to achieve ambitious collection targets. Anecdotal evidence suggests that consumer e-waste returns are difficult to achieve, and policymakers have suggested various incentives to try to improve e-waste returns. However, causal evidence does not exist to substantiate whether consumer e-waste returns are difficult to achieve, with or without proposed incentives. Methodology/results: Our study presents causal evidence from three field experiments (N=1,646) and an in-person laboratory experiment (N=300) to address these gaps. In the field experiments, we partner with a global consumer electronics company to measure returns from a mail-back process for e-waste. We test the proposed incentives of offering a prize lottery, a home pick-up, or charitably planting trees. With returns close to zero in all conditions, our field experiments causally confirm the difficulty of achieving consumer e-waste returns and temper expectations of these proposed incentives resolving the difficulty. We then turn to the lab to address the critical questions of why consumer returns were so low and how to improve returns. We apply the Theory of Planned Behavior to allow for comprehensive examination of how perceived benefits and costs impact return behavior, studying the incentives from the field as well as a cash lottery and immediate drop-off. Our lab experiment reveals that the incentives tested in the field may not have sufficiently improved perceptions of benefits and costs, whereas the two new incentives may be able to. Our results suggest a cash lottery may improve returns substantially, but immediate drop-off appears most effective as almost all consumers returned. Managerial implications: With European Commission collection targets now upwards of 85%, our study provides critical causal evidence that getting consumers to return e-waste remains difficult even when offering proposed incentive options. Our results suggest that prioritizing convenience to address key process leakages will be more fruitful than offering rewards to boost benefits of returning.

Keywords: Sustainability, Field Experiments, Incentives, Recycling, Circularity