Recycling waste: Does culture matter?

•We explore the relationship between culture and waste recycling.•We estimate of the impact of cultural participation upon households behavior.•We move from a cultural–ecological economics standpoint.•Our empirical results indicate that cultural access is a recycling determinant•Our findings could be beneficial for pro-environmental behaviors preventive policies

The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between culture and waste recycling, in order to provide a possible estimation of the impact of cultural participation upon households’ behavior within the meta-issue of sustainability. We look at the cognitive and social determinants of pro-environmental behavior. We based the exploratory analysis on the Italian Multipurpose Survey on Households Daily Life Aspects 2007, provided by ISTAT. We used data on household behaviors to highlight the determinants of waste recycling by moving from a cultural–ecological standpoint. The analysis highlights a strong positive relation between the propensity to take part in some cultural activities and the propensity to abide by waste recycling guidelines and prescriptions. Our empirical results indicate that policies aiming to influence sustainable development by fostering pro-environmental behaviors may be more effective when considering the cultural participation dimension as a complementary factor.