Recycling, waste tax and pro-environmental behaviors in an evolutionary game

This paper develops an evolutionary game model to analyze how economic incentives and social interactions influence household recycling behavior. Citizens are modeled as three types: non-recyclers, partial recyclers, and full recyclers, whose strategies evolve through imitation under bounded rationality. Individual payoffs depend on consumption benefits, a waste disposal tax on untreated waste, recycling costs and social interaction effects capturing similarity bias, moral motivation, and proselytism by environmentally responsible agents. The evolutionary dynamics are described by replicator dynamics, allowing us to characterize the existence and stability of multiple equilibria. Analytical results show that different population configurations may emerge, depending on the policy and social parameters. Numerical simulations further explore how variations in key parameters affect equilibrium selection and the basins of attraction of alternative outcomes. The results indicate that higher waste taxes and stronger social pressure increase the likelihood of convergence toward full recycling, whereas higher proselytism costs or stronger similarity bias can hinder the diffusion of pro-environmental behavior. These findings highlight the joint role of fiscal instruments and social dynamics in promoting sustainable waste management.