Households’ participation in the initial act of municipal solid waste (MSW) recycling is drawing increasing attention from policymakers from developing countries. This paper aimed to analyze households' behaviour and determinants of MSW recycling in the Mekong River Delta (MRD) by employing ordinary least square (OLS) regression and Probit models. The data for this study were gathered through direct interviews with 578 MRD residents representing different levels of urbanization. This study reveals that the MSW recycling rate may increase up to seven times. Furthermore, results emphasize the importance of enhancing households’ awareness and the roles of policymakers in monitoring recycling programs in the long term. Interestingly, while urbanization, environmental concerns, and members of organizations have a significant positive effect on recycling behaviour, households’ education levels result in fewer recycling activities. Based on these results, this study proposes implementing an MSW recycling policy to encourage families to recycle by incentivizing the prices of recycled materials (such as plastic bags and newspapers) and improving the livelihoods of itinerant waste buyers in informal recycling systems.