Burn or Bury? A Social Cost Comparison of Final Waste Disposal Methods

Dijkgraaf, Elbert; Vollebergh, Herman R.J.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.425281

Cited by 115 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 9 publications

(4 reference statements)

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“…Of these, five have since re-introduced user fees, while, again, the others all dropped user fees in the year they were merged with municipalities without user fees. 29 Dijkgraaf and Vollebergh (2004), converted to 2006 prices. 30 Waste disposal accounts for 50% of total waste costs incurred by municipalities, while waste collection accounts for 40% (Senternovem 2006).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Unit-Based Garbage Pricing: A Differences-in-Differences Approach

Allers

Hoeben

2009

Environ Resource Econ

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Using a unique 10-year dataset of all 458 Dutch municipalities, we apply a differences-in-differences approach to estimate the effect of unit-based pricing on household waste quantities and recycling. Community-level studies of unit-based pricing typically do not include fixed effects at the local level. We find that failure to do so may substantially inflate the estimated price effect. We also find that unit-based pricing may be endogenous, and use instrumental variables to account for this. Our analysis shows that user fees depend on user fees in neighboring jurisdictions (policy interaction). Our estimate of the garbage reduction per $1 user fee is lower than any previous estimate bar one. The price effect depends on the pricing system: weight-based systems reduce garbage quantities more than volume-based systems. User fees increase recycling, especially of paper, but not nearly as much as they reduce garbage quantities. We find no evidence for waste tourism or illegal dumping.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Unit-Based Garbage Pricing: A Differences-in-Differences Approach

Allers

Hoeben

2009

Environ Resource Econ

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“…In terms of landfill diversion we investigate whether provinces that invest in the main alternative disposal route, incineration, which may be more socially beneficial under some circumstances (Dijkgraaf and Vollebergh, 2004), show stronger landfill diversion. Using information on incinerated waste per capita, we find a negative and significant effect on the amount of waste going to landfill.…”

Section: Landfill Diversion Driversmentioning

confidence: 99%

Waste Generation and Landfill Diversion Dynamics: Decentralised Management and Spatial Effects

2010

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SummaryThis paper provides analyses of municipal waste generation and landfill diversion dynamics based on an 8-year panel dataset for Italy covering 103 provinces. Although absolute declining for waste generation is a long way off, there are some first signals of increasing relative delinking and robust average landfill diversion. Spatial effects seem to be negligible, probably due to the strong decentralisation of waste management and policies: local, economic, policy and structural factors contribute to explaining the waste dynamics. Though North-South waste performances are showing some signals of convergence, greater efforts towards convergence of waste performances in a decentralised policy scenario are needed. Keywords

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“…Accordingly, the subsidy on proper disposal through landfilling rises with the disutility 23 Interestingly, proper disposal of mixed waste streams does not depend on the hazards of each waste stream separately, but on the (overall) externalities of the landfill. Modern landfills are designed in such a way that ambient quality of the environment is guaranteed by securing against leakage of the worst potential toxic combination of mixed waste streams (Dijkgraaf and Vollebergh, 2004).…”

Section: Refund 23mentioning

confidence: 99%

An Economic Analysis of Mixing Wastes

Aalbers

Vollebergh

2005

SSRN Journal

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Using a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous waste, this paper studies optimal waste policy when households have to exert separation effort to produce nearhomogeneous waste streams suitable for recycling. Our model explicitly allows for changes in the composition (quality) of waste streams depending on how much effort households are willing to spend on separating different types of waste. Accordingly, we are able to generalize some earlier contributions to the waste management literature and demonstrate that with both mixing and effort included, a first-best optimum is feasible under reasonable conditions. In particular, we find that a (modified) depositrefund system still provides the optimal incentives to guide recycling as well as legal disposal (landfilling) and illegal dumping. Both the number and level of taxes and subsidies needed to reach the first-best depend crucially on the socially optimal level of dumping as well as the socially optimal composition of the mix.

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Burn or Bury? A Social Cost Comparison of Final Waste Disposal Methods

Cited by 115 publications

References 9 publications

Effects of Unit-Based Garbage Pricing: A Differences-in-Differences Approach

Effects of Unit-Based Garbage Pricing: A Differences-in-Differences Approach

Waste Generation and Landfill Diversion Dynamics: Decentralised Management and Spatial Effects

An Economic Analysis of Mixing Wastes

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