This paper investigates if and how illegal disposal of waste is affected by the decentralized waste management commitment of local governments and by enforcement policies. On the basis of a panel dataset at the Italian provincial level that originally integrates waste, economic, policy and enforcement data, our empirical analysis presents two main insights. First, a more diffuse commitment towards incentive based waste policy tends to increase illegal disposal. Second, a non-linear bell shaped relationship exists between enforcement and illegal disposal, namely deterrence only results after a (relatively high) level of controls is implemented.