This short report presents one strand of the findings from a comprehensive synthesis review of the available evidence on household waste prevention. The aim here is to reflect on evidence regarding the decoupling of economic growth and negative environmental impacts, as well as existing work on modelling and forecasting household waste prevention. Decoupling was found to be a contested term, both conceptually and in terms of practical application, and evidence that it can be achieved was often weak or ambiguous. Modelling, as a tool to explain current waste prevention behaviours, was found to suffer from weaknesses in understanding complex human behaviours and lack of data, and key studies were only able to explain around 30% of observed changes in waste prevention behaviour. Existing models and forecasts of the future growth of waste were therefore found to be largely speculative. These reflections have provided a number of insights for progressing household waste prevention, including the need for a mix of hard (i.e. fiscal, regulatory and service provision) and soft (i.e. behaviour change) measures, though environmental, behavioural, economic and political barriers are also recognized. Among the conclusions is that decoupling as a concept has limited value in terms of developing specific interventions, while recommendations relevant to policy makers and local authorities include the need for further data accumulation and conceptual work to improve modelling and forecasting.
Major changes are taking place in the residential decking market driven by concerns over wood preservatives and the resulting phase-out of chromated copper arsenic (CCA)-treated wood and recent entry into the marketplace by wood-plastic composites. Using conjoint analysis, this study explores consumer perceptions regarding residential decking materials over two time periods, 2000 and 2003. Type of material and lifetime were the most important decking attributes. Of lesser importance were annual maintenance and price. Major changes took place over the three-year study period with respect to opinions towards treated wood and wood-plastic composites. Consumers became much more negative towards treated wood and wood-plastic composites received nearly equivalent gains. The CCA controversy clearly had an impact in the marketplace and we demonstrate the usefulness of conjoint analysis in capturing this change. Key words: decking, consumer, conjoint analysis, plastic lumber, treated wood, cedar, substitution
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