The justification for this proposal is based on the growing awareness that environmental problems have more to do with the decisions of ordinary people as opposed to governments and corporations. This proposal argues that the solution for solid waste issues involves not only technical or economic regulations or both, but also real changes in individuals’ behaviour. Hence, with the aim to provide an explanation to such complex interaction of questions, an interdisciplinary study is required. The main objective is to develop a better critical understanding of impact of influential factors on individuals’ waste prevention behaviour (WPB). The specific objectives are: (a) to verify the conceptual model for WPB by carrying out a survey in two different local conditions; (b) to improve the conceptual model by including the influence of situational factors and specific social norms regarding waste prevention (WP); (c) to investigate the results of the WPB survey through structural equation modelling analysis, and; (d) to understand policy interventions on WP using the behaviour model with an agent-based simulation and, to then establish possible future solid waste reduction scenarios. Thus, the methodology will test a pre-conceived behaviour model for WP by including specific social norms and situational factors as behaviour predictors. A simulation will be designed to test out possible policy interventions based on a virtual society of autonomous agents. This bottom-up approach, where a complex system is viewed as a large set of small interacting components, will identify individuals’ behaviours and their interactions. The results may provide the much-need justification to make the municipal authorities in developed and developing cities apply WP policies as their most important input to reduce solid waste generation.