How do human behaviour and infrastructure interact in achieving biowaste policy objectives?

Effective biowaste management depends on the interplay between household behaviours and infrastructure development, yet many local policy actions overlook this crucial dynamic. This study explores how this interaction influences the achievement of local policy objectives for biowaste management. We propose a system dynamic modelling approach, applied to a case study where local policy-makers collaboratively set four objectives to reach within a given time horizon. Our model analyses the interplay between infrastructure development, and behavioural dynamics, revealing the following key findings: 1) biowaste production always increases due to population growth whereas decreasing with the application of the anti-biowaste plan, which has positive or negative impacts on reaching the policy objectives; 2) infrastructure development is never sufficient to meet all policy objectives because behavioural shifts are essential; 3) gradual behavioural intentions speed of change, particularly in sorting for home composting, is necessary to meet all objectives without infrastructure capacity constraint and to reach most objectives with infrastructure constraints of capacity; 4) trade-offs exist between sorting for home composting and sorting for dedicated collection behaviours, where faster adoption of the first can hinder the second. This study overcomes the uncertainty of how people will change their behaviours according to local policy action. By studying the impact of various possible evolutions of behaviours, our work provides policy-makers with insights into the conditions necessary for achieving their objectives, accounting for the dynamic interactions between human behaviours, evolution in the population size, and infrastructure development.