Making non-compliance visible: how smart bins reshape social norms in urban waste management

Urban waste management increasingly relies on hybrid collection systems based on controlled-access smart bins. Their implicit promise is to strengthen compliance by increasing behavioural control while reducing the organisational costs associated with door-to-door collection. This article tests this premise through a survey of 502 users involved in a large-scale Italian pilot project. Integrating analytical sociology, social norms theory, and Science and Technology Studies, we identify three interrelated mechanisms underlying the system's ambivalent outcomes: limited norm internalisation, ineffective sanctions, and the increased visibility of non-compliant behaviour. We argue that smart bins reshape users' empirical expectations and may thereby contribute to the progressive erosion of compliance with waste separation norms.