Between 1988 and 1997

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relies on the information provided by them to be accurate and generalizable. It will also attempt to tie individual incentives to the organization’s incentives where possible and appropriate.

Before 1988, waste reduction and recycling were overlooked as options for MSWM by the central government. Despite there being news reports that state there was a small group of recycling firms, very little is known of these; Lu et al. (2006) furthermore stated that no government recycling was taking place during these years. There is one news report from 1991 that mentions a recycled paper industry that exists since 1985, but there is not enough further information available from this period for proper analysis (Yu 1991). This period will therefore be further disregarded from this analysis; whereas informal recycling is relevant to this thesis, information at this point is too scarce to further investigate.

It is however certain that this caused the displays of public littering that in turn caused Master Cheng Yen to mention recycling in her speech, initially with purely ideological goals. These ideological goals included both environmental preservation and first hand engagement of all levels of society in working towards a better world. One of her followers started doing so, quickly followed by others. This small, initial group gained a financial contribution from collecting and selling recyclables, after which recycling rapidly spread amongst Cheng Yen’s followers.

6.1.1 Between 1988 and 1997

Between 1988 and 1997, several policy changes had been made however. The government attempted to tackle the problems related to MSW that had been plaguing the country since the rapid economic development. Collection and recycling of specific products was done on a mandatory basis by the original producers, effectively making it financially more attractive for them to either avoid certain regulated materials or to come up with ways of making said materials more recyclable. The central government also started educating the community about recycling and resource reduction. This was without much avail for the latter: daily MSW generation per capita peaked in 1997 at 1.143 kilograms (Lu et al. 2006) .

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It seems that unstructured collection and lack of real incentives could not get the Taiwanese community to focus on recycling, which is in line with McCarty and Shrum’s (2001) conclusion that convenience is a crucial factor for many consumers when they consider recycling. Municipal collection, namely, was still only for regular garbage; the central government was unable to provide sufficient funds to collect- and further process recyclables in a coordinated fashion (EPA 2012b).

Furthermore, in the early 1990s the central government funded construction of incinerators, which were in the medium term expected to be the main disposal method for MSW. This further drained any funds that could have been put towards recycling for this period, as it was not in their interest to divert from these already-made costs. Later in the 1990s and the early 2000s, local and central EPAs were under fire of numerous NIMBY movements that opposed incineration in their neighborhoods (Hsu 2006).

It was during this time that the Tzu Chi Foundation’s activities in recycling were growing to reach their largest relative scale, attempting to improve the above described situation.

The speech by Cheng Yen provided a key incentive to start. As mentioned before, recycling activities spread after a successful initial attempt in pursuit of cleaner streets and involving as many people as possible in environmental protection, that also raised money for donation for the Foundation. This combination of ideological and financial incentives was mentioned by all sources (interviewees and TCQ) to have been present throughout the Foundation’s recycling history.

Both the private sector and municipal governments do not have any statistics regarding this period, but as a result recycling done by the Foundation grew to a considerable scale, as statistics starting in 1995 showed. For many small shop owners and community members, it was a convenient way of disposing of recyclables in an environmentally friendly way, and a further service was proven by volunteers who cleaned the streets.

This in theory must have provided social pressure for community members to support the Foundation’s volunteers in their recycling activities, as they saw the effort put in to improve and maintain local living conditions.

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In sum, actors during this time were not fully aligned, and most definitely not towards recycling. The central government had reasons to incinerate many types of garbage except for specific classes of recyclables; local community members protested against this in the form of NIMBY-protests; community members were not properly stimulated to sort and recycle, since local governments did not receive means to properly fund collection. The Tzu Chi Foundation, together with the then relatively small private sector, were the only actors that had strong incentives to recycle; both had a financial incentive, and the Tzu Chi Foundation clearly had ideological drivers.

The latter served an exemplary function to others in terms of recycling and took the lead in what it viewed as necessary: recycling. During this “up-and-coming” phase, the ideological incentive and intrinsic value of recycling were key to do it; the financial incentive further enabled and motivated it for the organization. For the individual volunteers, incentives ranged from ideological ones to more social ones such as relatedness. The financial reward for the organization was an extension of the ideological incentive, since the funds were spent towards Tzu Chi’s goals.

Table 8 – Model for Tzu Chi’s actions over 1988-1997. Source: own.

Incentives  Purposive: Ideological incentive to protect environment

 Purposive: Ideological incentive to involve as many people as possible in environmental protection

 Material: Financial from recyclable purchasers

Interest  Improving participation in- and awareness of recycling

 Cleaner streets

 Protecting the environment.

 Sell recyclables; use funds for Foundation donations

Actions  Trend: Strongly grew number of recycling volunteers, stations and collection efforts

Effect on recycling success

 Steadily grew into a large nationwide recycler: quantities until 1998 more than half of the governments’ quantities.

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Incentive interaction during periods

 Ideological incentive provided by speech was subsequently strengthened by the initial income of recyclables: synergize