Waste and organized crime in regional environments: How waste tariffs and the mafia affect waste management and disposal

•The presence of organized crime within local institutions worsens waste performances.•Legal disposal and sorted waste collection are both undermined by organized crime.•Sorted waste is influenced by the presence of crime in neighbouring provinces.•The landfill of waste is characterized by more local crime-related effects.

Waste management and disposal are influenced by socio-economic, institutional and policy factors that possess idiosyncratic features in regional settings. The role of organized crime is a largely unexplored factor. Crime organizations such as the mafia are known to collude with local institutions to control waste markets. As a result, legal forms of waste disposal and socially preferable management options are often undermined primarily through an influence on policy enforcement. Given its high regional heterogeneity and local ‘waste crises’, Italy provides a compelling case for the study of crime's effects on local waste performance. Panel econometric analyses show that sorted collection of recyclable waste and legal forms of waste disposal are lower when the mafia's effect on the actions of local governments is more intense.