Drift in policy implementation: Incentives thwarted in a recycling programme.

An incentives-based residential recycling programme was designed and implemented for improving residential waste sorting in Shanghai city, but showed very limited success in its performance. To identify , this study systematically analysed each step of implementation using key informant interviews and site observations. Results show that policy intentions were retained in the policy devolution processes from Municipality to District, and then to Street (ward) levels, but the incentives concepts were effectively nullified in the further devolution to community-level governance.