Waste Separation Cooperation

(1) Inter-international cooperation. The international-level cooperation is mainly focused on the field of hazardous waste. In treating highly concentrated, radioactive nuclear reactor wastes, the effect of a single country treating such hazardous wastes is often limited due to the limitations of technology, natural resources, and human resources. The United States and Russia are engaged in a cooperative program to separate highly concentrated, radioactive nuclear waste. Meanwhile, the U.S., E.U., Russia, Japan, Korea, and Norway fund the Moscow International Science and Technology Center, whose primary function is to study high-level nuclear reactor waste disposal. In recent years, the need for ODA policy optimization has grown in the context of growing development inequalities between the Northern and Southern hemispheres. In order to promote efficient ODA planning, the Mongolian official and the Korean institution KOICA started an international cooperation program on waste separation [5].

(2) Inter-organizational cooperation. Cooperation in waste separation first appeared in Europe and the U.S. In 1982, the U.S. EPA introduced the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and explored state authorization programs for RCRA. However, the EPA lacked the administrative capacity and knowledge of local conditions to implement RCRA independently; the states lacked the research capacity to develop complex regulations. Thus, environmental protection from hazardous waste requires federal and state cooperation in hazardous waste disposal. Sweden, Denmark, and Australia have established several joint municipal partnerships in which municipalities are responsible for waste planning and disposal. In Ukraine, cooperation between housing organizations and housekeepers for waste separation has been promoted based on the experience of European and American countries. In Southeast Asian countries, India, Thailand [6, 7], Malaysia [8], Indonesia [9], and Vietnam [10, 11] have suggested the establishment of public, private, and community sector cooperation in economic, social, cultural, and environmental aspects to obtain appropriate forms of waste management practices. Also under the spotlight are a collaboration between waste recycling startups and their peers [12] and collaboration between product manufacturers and users [13]. Latin American countries such as Guatemala, Brazil [14], and Bolivia [15] have developed government, community (council), NGO, citizen, and private sector waste separation partnerships. China has implemented a public-private partnership where the government purchases public services from enterprises [16].

(3) Special types of waste. Particular types of waste differ from ordinary household waste; their treatment practices have unique requirements and different cooperation paradigms.

Synergy Mechanism

(1) Cultural origins. Due to North America’s multi-ethnic and multicultural nature, Ruth Benedict [24] introduced the concept of “synergy” in her lectures to solve the problem of cultural conflicts. Abraham [25] further developed a dynamic model of social synergy to solve the synergy problem in emerging countries’ international relations.

(2) Theory development. Problem-solving often requires crossing boundaries, for example, between disciplines. However, when policymakers call for “interdisciplinarity”, they often mean “synergy”. “Synergy” occurs when the whole offers more possibilities than the sum of its parts [26]. The concept of “synergy” has semantic features: interdisciplinary orientation of scientific research, synergistic effects, and joint actions [27], and the boundaries between them are not always clear. Moreover, it seems that synergy should be more deeply penetrated into economics research [28]. However, synergies across disciplinary boundaries necessarily involve more stakeholders [29]. The “stakeholder synergy” perspective can identify new value creation opportunities that are particularly effective in strategic terms. The “stakeholder synergy” perspective extends stakeholder theory further into the strategic arena and provides insights to achieve broader value creation that is more likely to generate sustainable competitive advantage [30].

(3) Natural disciplines. The idea of synergistic action of multiple drugs has long been an essential issue in the biological and medical community. Especially for complex diseases, combining multiple drugs can be incredibly beneficial compared to treating a single drug alone. Combinations that achieve “more than the sum of their parts” are synergistic [31]. However, synergy is not limited to biology [32] and medicine. These ideas have also been developed in many different disciplines. Roell [33] discuss the various terms surrounding the concept of synergy, providing a comprehensive list of terms that span many disciplines.

(4) Social governance. The idea of “synergy” is also fully reflected in social governance. Climate change policies such as renewable energy, energy efficiency management, afforestation, and coal and forest biomass power generation must align with national development goals and focus on synergies [34]. The exact “synergy” is needed in livelihoods. U.S. child welfare policies are conducive to preventing child abuse but also focus on systemic synergies promoting safe and equitable care [35]. In addition, “corruption control + political stability” in concert with industrial development can contribute to income equity in Africa [36].

(5) Economic management. The value of inter-firm mergers and acquisitions in business activities comes from the synergistic combination of acquirer and target [37]. Acquisitions can significantly reshape inter-organizational networks by combining previously independent nodes and allowing the acquirer to inherit relationships from the target company, potentially creating network synergies. Network synergies refer to the combination of the networks of the acquirer and the target through nodal collapse, allowing the acquirer to gain control over the existing relationships of the target, thus placing the merged firm in a more favorable structural position [38]. Similarly, innovation and exporting are potent drivers of firm competitiveness in business activities. Therefore, models have been constructed to assess the synergistic effects of firms’ innovation and export capabilities, which can be a beneficial tool for firms to enhance their innovation and export capabilities [39]. However, there is also a need for “synergy” in the firm’s internal activities. For example, a synergistic approach to production management can ensure sustainable and efficient operations. Production management criteria and indicators have been proposed to determine the level of synergistic efficiency of management. Individual elements of synergy may also have an impact on the financial results of the enterprise. The synergistic approach to production management can be used by management to make business management decisions and development plans [40].

The above research has significant theoretical value and practical significance for cooperative waste separation, but there are still some problems. (1) Most researchers only consider residents and enterprises as two game subjects. The government is only introduced into the study as an external variable. It does not regard the government as the same game subject as residents and enterprises. (2) The benefits brought to residents and enterprises by the government as a game subject are not considered comprehensively. Only the role of government subsidies is often considered, ignoring the cost of cooperation reduced by policy support brought by the government as a game subject. (3) The effect of the willingness to participate on the strategy choice is not considered among the cooperative game subjects.

Therefore, this paper adds the government as the cooperative body of waste separation into the game model, considers the influence of policy support on the cooperative cooperation of waste separation, and analyzes the new cooperative mechanism of “government supervision + enterprise leadership + universal participation” by constructing a tripartite game payment matrix of government, residents, and enterprises. The new mechanism of waste separation cooperation can accelerate the sustainable and high-quality development of China’s population, resources, and environment by analyzing the influence of relevant parameters on the cooperative strategy of the three parties through numerical analysis.

The Evolutionary Impact of Tripartite Willingness on Synergistic Cooperation

Fig. 1a) shows a simulation of the impact of simultaneous changes in the initial willingness of the government, residents, and enterprises to participate in collaborative cooperation, with other parameters held constant. Assuming that the initial willingness of government, residents, and enterprises is the same, i.e., x = y = z = 0.5, we can see from Fig. 1a) that the zero boundaries of the willingness of the three parties are between 0.4 and 0.5. When the initial willingness of x, y, and z are all less than the critical value, x, y, and z converge to the point (0, 0, 0); at this time, the enterprises participating in the entire competition in the market converge faster than residents and the government, and the government converges the slowest. This is because the market least influences the government and has natural administrative properties; when the initial willingness x, y, and z are more significant than the critical value, x, y, and z converge to the point (1, 1, 1); however, when the initial willingness is at a moderately low level, the willingness of enterprises directly falls faster, the willingness of residents and the government first rises and then falls, in which the residents’ willingness rises slightly and then resumes falling faster than the government. There is a slight rise followed by a slow decline, finally converging at the point (0, 0, 0); when the willingness of all three parties to participate is more significant, the government, residents, and enterprises will directly rise and converge at the point (1, 1, 1). The simulation results show that as the initial willingness x, y, and z increases, x converges to 1 more slowly, and y and z converge to 1 more quickly. Eventually, all three parties tend to participate in the collaborative cooperation because residents and enterprises are more sensitive to the benefits and expenditures in terms of the public service category of waste separation collaborative cooperation. In contrast, the government is less sensitive to the benefits due to its public service provision attributes and policy-oriented reasons. The government is less sensitive to the benefits and expenditures due to its public service attributes and policy orientation.

Fig. 1.

Evolutionary results of simultaneous changes in willingness to participate.

Fig. 1b) shows the simulation of the effect of the change of the initial willingness x of the government on the collaborative cooperation strategy of residents and enterprises to participate in waste separation, with other parameters held constant. From Fig. 1b), when the initial willingness of residents and universities is at a medium level, the critical value of government initial willingness x is between 0.2 and 0.3. When x is less than this critical value, y and z converge to 0, and the final curve converges to the point (0, 0, 0). At this time, the increase of x makes y and z converge slowly, and z converges faster than y. When x is more significant than this critical value, y and z converge to 1, and the final curve converges to the point (1, 1, 1). The final curve converges to the point (1, 1, 1) when x increases and z converges slower than y. When the willingness to participate in x is moderately low (x = 0.3), the y curve rises first. It then goes through a short, smooth period before finally converging to 1.

Fig. 1c) shows the simulation of the effect of the change in the initial willingness y of the residents on the government and enterprises’ participation in the synergistic cooperation strategy with other parameters held constant. Fig. 1c) shows that when the initial willingness of government and enterprises is at a medium level (x = z = 0.5), the critical value of residents’ initial willingness y is between 0.2 and 0.3. When the value of y is less than this critical value, the curve converges to the point (0, 0, 0), at which y rises and then falls, x first smooths for a period and then falls, z directly falls, and finally, all converge to 0; when y is more significant than this critical value. The simulation results show that with the increase in residents’ initial willingness y, the enterprises’ willingness to participate grows gradually stronger. Finally, they all choose the cooperative strategy. The cooperation strategy does not change significantly during the government’s willingness to participate. Since market factors mainly influence enterprises, the residents’ willingness to participate becomes more significant, the participation becomes higher, and enterprises feel the market change and change with it; market change factors less influence the government due to the provision of public services and administrative attributes.

Fig. 1d) shows the simulation of the impact of the change in the initial willingness of enterprises z on the government and residents’ participation in the collaborative strategy, with other parameters held constant. As can be seen from Fig. 1d), when the initial willingness of enterprises z is at a low level (z = 0.1), the y and z curves all fall briefly and then rise rapidly and finally converge to 1, and the equilibrium point converges to the point (1, 1, 1); when the initial willingness of enterprises z gradually increases to a medium level, the y and z curves converge significantly faster. The x curves converge slower than the low level of the initial willingness of enterprises z, but the overall change is not significant. The simulation results show that when the initial willingness of enterprise z is low, the government will increase its participation and use policy support to promote cooperation between residents and enterprises. When the initial willingness of enterprise z gradually increases, the government only needs to participate less to make the residents and enterprises cooperate.

Fig. 2a) shows that when the initial willingness is y, the z of residents and enterprises is low. When the initial willingness x of the government is at a high level, the curve converges to 0, and the equilibrium point converges to the point (0, 0, 0), i.e., all three parties choose not to participate in the cooperative waste separation; when the initial willingness y and z of residents and enterprises are at a high level, and the initial willingness x of the government is at a low level, the curve converges to 1. The equilibrium point converges to the point (1, 1, 1), i.e., all three parties choose not to participate in the cooperative waste separation. As the curve converges to 1, the equilibrium point converges to the point (1, 1, 1), i.e., all three parties choose to participate in the cooperative waste separation. The simulation results show the government’s initial willingness to participate in waste separation cooperation converges to 1. The government’s x converges to 0 when the government’s x is low. The simulation results show that the government’s participation or non-participation has less influence on residents’ and enterprises’ waste separation cooperation when the government’s support is negligible. The market factor becomes the key to enterprises’ strategy selection. The government influences the residents more than the enterprises. When the government’s policy support is small, but the enterprises can get a better income through cooperation, the enterprises’ willingness to participate in cooperation will become stronger; finally, they choose a cooperative cooperation strategy; when the enterprises’ concern is deep, but the income obtained through cooperation is lower than the psychological expectation, the enterprises’ willingness to participate will become lower, and finally they choose no cooperative cooperation strategy.

Fig. 2b) shows that when the initial willingness of enterprises is high (z = 0.8) and the initial willingness of residents is low (y = 0.1), x, y, and z will converge to 0. At this time, the willingness of residents y will rise rapidly and then fall rapidly. The willingness of enterprises z will show a rapid and direct decline. The rate of decline is significantly faster than the willingness of residents y. The government’s willingness x will converge to 0 when the initial willingness of enterprises is high (z = 0.8) and the initial willingness of residents is low (y = 0.1). When the initial willingness of enterprises is low (z = 0.1) and the initial willingness of residents is high (y = 0.8), x, y, and z will converge to 1. Currently, the enterprises’ willingness converges faster than the residents’ willingness, and the final equilibrium point converges to the point (1, 1, 1). The simulation results show that, under the condition that the government’s willingness to participate in x remains unchanged, the residents’ willingness to participate in y has a more significant influence on the enterprises’ willingness to participate in z than the enterprises’ willingness to participate in z on the residents’ willingness to participate in y. This is because the initiation point of waste separation cooperation is the source separation of waste. The residents are the first executors of the source separation of waste. The enterprises can only further perform their role functions after the waste has been source-separated, making enterprises more sensitive to residents’ willingness to participate. Only when residents’ willingness to participate is high can enterprises’ willingness to participate increase. Otherwise, it will decrease.

Fig. 2.

Evolutionary results of the change.

The Evolutionary Impact of Government Support on Synergistic Cooperation

The government’s willingness to participate is mainly reflected in two aspects: first, policy support, which makes residents and enterprises have a certain percentage of total cost reduction in collaborative cooperation by specifying a series of relevant policies; second, direct government funds subsidize residents and enterprises, and the government allocates the subsidized funds according to the actual situation.

Fig. 2c) shows the change in coefficient d of the total cost reduction of synergistic cooperation by the government-provided support policies on the residents’ and enterprises’ participation in the synergistic cooperation strategy, with other parameters constant. When d is more significant than this critical value, x, y, and z converge to 0, and the final equilibrium point tends to the point (0, 0, 0). At this time, the convergence speed of enterprise willingness z is faster than that of resident willingness y. The government’s willingness x tends to 0 after a period of increase and then decrease, and the convergence speed is the slowest; when d is less than this critical value, x, y, and z converge to 1, and the equilibrium point tends to point (1, 1, 1). At this time, the decrease of d accelerates the convergence speed of y and z, and along with the decline of d, the convergence of y and z presents different situations. When d is at a higher level (d = 0.7), the z curve first declines and then rises, and the convergence speed is slower than the y curve; when d = 0.6, the convergence speed of y and z is the same; when d = 0.5, the z curve converges faster than the y curve. The simulation results show that the change of cost reduction coefficient d affects the choice of strategies for residents and firms. The impact on firms is more significant than that on residents. This is because when the government participates in collaborative cooperation, it will provide specific policy support for residents and enterprises, which makes the cost of collaborative cooperation decrease for residents and enterprises, i.e., residents and enterprises will choose to participate in collaborative cooperation if they only need to pay fewer costs to bring significant benefits. The change in d is more pronounced for firms because of their profit-seeking attributes.

The Evolutionary Impact of Cost-sharing Factors on Synergy

Fig. 2d) shows the simulation of the effect of the change in the cost-sharing coefficient on the participation of residents and firms in the synergistic cooperation strategy with other parameters held constant. As shown in Fig. 2d), the critical value of the cost-sharing coefficient b is between 0.7 and 0.8. When b is more significant than this critical value, x, y, and z converge to 0. At this time, the x curve converges the slowest when b increases, and the y curve rises slightly before decreasing. The z curve is the most special, first rising rapidly to its highest point, then falling rapidly after a period of smoothness, and the equilibrium point converges to the point (0, 0, 0); when b is less than this critical value, x, y, and z converge to 1. When b is less than the critical value, x, y, and z converge to 1. At this time, the b decreases, the y and z curves converge faster, the x curve converges at a nominal rate, enterprise z converges faster than resident y converges, and the final equilibrium point converges to (1, 1, 1). The simulation results show that the decrease of cost-sharing coefficient b affects the strategy choice of both residents and firms. The effect is more significant for firms than residents. This is because the profit-seeking attributes of firms make them more sensitive to changes in their costs. Therefore, the cost-sharing coefficient b has a more significant impact on firms.

The Evolutionary Impact of Revenue and Its Distribution Coefficient on Synergistic Cooperation

Fig. 3a) shows the simulation of the effect of the change in the extra benefit U₅ of the collaborative cooperation between residents and firms on the choice of the collaborative cooperation strategy with other parameters held constant. When U₅ is less than this critical value, x, y, and z converge to 0, with z converging faster than y. The x curve rises and then falls, and the final equilibrium point tends to the point (0, 0, 0); when U₅ is more significant than this critical value, x, y, and z all converge to 1, and at the level of U₅ = 80, the z curve first falls and then rises. At the level of U₅ = 80, the z curve first decreases and then rises to 1, and the y curve rises more smoothly. At the level of U₅ = 100, the z converges faster than y, the x convergence speed does not change significantly, and the final equilibrium point tends to the point (1, 1, 1). The simulation results in Fig. 3a) show that the increase in additional earnings can increase the willingness of residents and firms to participate, with a more significant impact on firms than on residents and an insignificant impact on the government. This is because the profit-seeking property of enterprises makes them the most sensitive to benefits, followed by residents, while the government is the least sensitive to benefits due to its public service provision property and policy-oriented factors.

Fig. 3.

Evolutionary results of the change in additional benefits and the coefficient of distribution of additional benefits.

Fig. 3b) shows the additional benefit allocation coefficient change in the synergy between residents and firms with other parameters constant. From Fig. 3b), the critical value of the additional benefit allocation coefficient is between 0.3 and 0.4. When the allocation coefficient a is less than this critical value, x, y, and z converge to 0, z experiences a significant fluctuation and finally declines. In contrast, the y and x curves decline smoothly, where the z curve converges faster than y, the x curve converges the slowest, and the final equilibrium point converges to the point (0, 0, 0); when the allocation coefficient a is larger than the critical value, x, y, and z all converge to 1. The difference in the convergence speed of the x, y, and z curves is not apparent. The final equilibrium point tends to the point (1,1,1). According to the simulation results in Fig. 3b), residents’ willingness will drop rapidly as the distribution coefficient decreases. The enterprises’ willingness will experience fluctuations and then also drop. The government’s willingness will also drop slowly because the distribution coefficient is too small, so the residents’ share is too small. Their willingness will immediately decrease once it falls below the residents’ psychological expectations. The enterprises’ share of revenue will increase partly in the short term. However, as the residents’ willingness decreases, the source of waste separation is cut off. The willingness of enterprises will also decrease. When the willingness of both residents and enterprises decreases, the government’s willingness will also decrease slowly.