Modest governance as a condition for separating benevolent from malevolent recycling practices in the Netherlands

Abstract The municipal government of Hengelo (Netherlands) has introduced reversed collection and differentiated tariffs for waste collection as two policies to stimulate the separation of household waste at source and reduce residual waste. It has also launched other innovative ways of reducing residual solid waste. While most people comply with the new policies, the citizenry has also reacted with fierce protests and in an astounding diversity of ways to the disposal of their waste, unforeseen by the municipality. Two negative effects of the citizens’ creative reactions have been haphazard separation and the littering of the street. The municipality has reacted with condescension by imposing a mixture of control and pedagogic strategies. The aim of this article is first to demonstrate the amazing width of municipal policies, second, to understand the negative reactions of citizens, and, third, the reasons why municipal responses to these reactions have partly remained without success. We argue that ‘modest governance’, which is more sensitive to the citizens’ life worlds, is necessary if the service co-production of waste management is to be a success.