Delinking and environmental Kuznets curves for waste indicators in Europe

Abstract

The paper provides preliminary empirical evidence on delinking trends concerning waste indicators in Europe. First, methodological issues regarding the analysis of delinking are discussed, and the related Environmental Kuznets Curves literature is critically examined. Then, European-level data on municipal and packaging waste are investigated by panel data approaches, examining different EKC specifications. For packaging and municipal waste flows, decoupling seems to occur, at best, only on a relative basis. No significant evidence in favour of an inverted U-shape Kuznets curve is found. Europe as a whole seems to be still lagging behind in reaching the critical turning point of the relationship between waste and household consumption. Our results suggest some possible advantages and limitations of panel data for a set of relatively homogenous countries as well as the possible added value of further delinking analyses for specific waste materials and/or single countries. Although preliminary, depending on available data, results suggest that waste prevention, claimed as a priority by EU waste policy, has not been successfully pursued by European and national policies in practice.

A panel data heterogeneous Bayesian estimation of environmental Kuznets curves for CO2emissions

“…Second, empirical evidence in support of an EKC dynamics, or delinking between emissions and income growth, has been shown to be more limited and fragile in the case of CO 2 emissions with respect to local air and water pollutants. A decoupling between income growth and CO 2 emissions is not (yet) apparent for many important economies in the world (Vollebergh and Kemfert, 2005); where it is observed, it is a relative rather than the 1 Waste, which is a very different externality with respect to impacts and local dimension, is the only pollutant other than CO2 where there is a lack of robust evidence in favour of absolute delinking (Mazzanti and Zoboli, 2005;Mazzanti, 2007;Wang et al, 1998). There is some recent evidence of EKC trends in waste generation (Mazzanti, Montini, Zoboli, 2008a,b).…”

Waste Generation, Incineration and Landfill Diversion: De-Coupling Trends, Socio-Economic Drivers and Policy Effectiveness in the EU

“…They find positive elasticities, but lower than 1, in the range 0.15 to 0.69. For a group of European countries, Mazzanti and Zoboli (2005) found neither absolute nor relative delinking. Using European panel datasets they found no WKC evidence for municipal waste or packaging waste respectively for 1995-2000 and 1997-2000.…”

“…12 This panel data model presented refers to baseline FEM model with fixed effects and time dummies. 13 All analyses are here carried out specifying consumption as the main economic driver, since it is the most plausible in waste dynamics given its strictest link to MSW (Mazzanti and Zoboli, 2005). Nevertheless, results do not change when using GDP.…”

Embedding Landfill Diversion in Economic, Geographical and Policy Settings Panel Based Evidence from Italy

“…This extended, decentralised and recent source of data is of major interest for an investigation of waste processes and for policy evaluation, where evidence is typically scattered, poor quality and rather scarce. This evidence will complement EU level analyses (Mazzanti and Zoboli, 2005;Andersen et al, 2007) 1 on the driving forces of past and future waste trends, and is a consequence of recent studies on the drivers of waste generation in Italy; it demonstrates that Environmental 1 See also EEA (2007, p. 7, fig.1), which shows historical and projected (to 2020) waste generation and landfill trends: the former is not expected to be associated to delinking, while landfill, will show weak delinking Country heterogeneity is a problem -and there are some critical regional hot spots. Kuznets Curve (EKC) evidence is far from being fact for many regions, and that waste strategies may play a role that is complementary to exogenous drivers, such as income (Mazzanti et al, 2008a,b).…”

“…For European countries, Mazzanti and Zoboli (2005) (Turner et al, 1998 provides a rare evaluation based specifically on externalities). Given the lack of firm data, these studies provide interesting, but only qualitative assessments.…”