Volunteer model in the field of waste management

Abstract

Subject. The studied issue is associated with the failure of waste management reform in Russia. The waste management sector is suffering from underfunding of the waste management infrastructure by the state and private investors, incomplete implementation of separate waste collection, and the acute environmental hazards of landfills and dumps. All these factors indicate that the issue requires a bottom-up approach, starting with households, as that is where the whole process of municipal solid waste management begins. Therefore, it is relevant to study the possibilities of engaging households in the ecologically optimal process of separate waste collection with the help of volunteers. The purpose of the study was to substantiate the expediency of involving volunteers in informing, training, and encouraging households to sort waste. The volunteer movement in Russia is actively developing in many directions, including environmental protection. Environmental volunteers are involved in planting forests, cleaning up polluted lands and water reservoirs, working in nature reserves, and carrying out environmental education activities, including separate waste collection. The research methodology includes the methods of household surveys, modelling of volunteer mass movement, sensitivity analysis, and predicting the achievability of the targets for separate collection and accumulation of municipal solid waste (MSW) in accordance with Russia’s development goals up to 2030. Results. We modelled the elasticity and quantitative growth of households willing to switch to separate waste collection under certain conditions. One of the conditions is the involvement of volunteers in public awareness activities on optimal waste management. Our calculations showed that the number of households that would adopt separate collection could increase by 38%, taking into account all the incentives. This would make it possible to meet the national goals for this area by 2030. Discussion. Models of volunteer activity were developed in related scientific disciplines: sociology, pedagogy, and psychology. Economic models use value estimates of the contribution of volunteering to the added product, human capital of the organisation and the individual. The novelty of the author’s approach is to model volunteering in relation to waste management, it fills a gap in economic research relating to the phenomenon of volunteering.

Keywords

• municipal solid waste
• separate collection
• sensitivity analysis
• republic of khakassia
• household behavior