Quantifying the Contribution of Youth to Urban Carbon Mitigation in Waste Sorting: An ESE Model Based on Beijing

Abstract

Based on actual survey data from Beijing in 2025, this study establishes an Environmental-Social-Economic (ESE) model to calculate the impact of waste sorting among young people aged 15–24. The study used both Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and field observations. The results showed that young people indeed have a clear gap between knowledge and action. In other words, many young people think they sort well, but in practice, they are still prone to errors. In terms of carbon reduction effects, young people's waste sorting mainly contributes significantly to plastic and paper materials, accounting for 42.1% and 28.4% of total emission reductions respectively. The study also found an important finding: the accuracy rate of waste sorting affects the final emission reduction by about twice the number of participants. In other words, rather than simply involving more young people, it's better to first find ways to help those already involved sort waste more accurately. Besides, if a co-production model is adopted, allowing young people to participate in community management and related decision-making rather than just passively sorting waste, their interest in green careers increases by 24.5 percentage points, on the other hand, the operating costs of urban waste management drop by 6.8%. Overall, these data show that young people's participation in waste sorting indeed has environmental and economic value. Improving the quality of young people's participation may be more important than simply expanding the number of participants.