The impact of the policy of municipal solid waste source-separated collection on waste reduction: a case study of China

Abstract

To fight against environmental pressure arising from growing municipal solid waste (MSW), the program of MSW source-separated collection has been launched in eight pilot cities of China since 2000. What is the impact of this pilot program on waste generation? Based on the citylevel data for 1998-2012, this study examines its impact on per capita amount of MSW by employing panel data model and inverse probability weighting method. It is shown that the policy of MSW source-separated collection has insignificant influence on reduction of per capita quantity of MSW while consumption expenditure per capita, average household size and average education level significantly accelerate per capita waste generation. Although the program of MSW source separation has not led to significant waste reduction in our analysis, source separation has provided the basis for reuse, recycling and recovery of MSW by classifying waste into categories of recyclable and recycling materials. In response to the pressure of growing MSW as a result of industrialization, urbanization and economic growth, source separation is the best approach to waste management to reduce the burden of waste disposals. Therefore, it is necessary to facilitate public participation in source separation by adoption of mixed policies combining voluntary with mandatory as well as education approaches.

An Exploration of the Impacts of Compulsory Source-Separated Policy in Improving Household Solid Waste-Sorting in Pilot Megacities, China: A Case Study of Nanjing

“…This estimate was significant at the level of 1.0%, proving the validity of the regression estimation. Previous studies have also yielded to similar results in other cities, China [24,28]. Changes in the number of HSW packages and the percentage of classified HSW of the respondents in 10 weeks, both of which increased significantly, are shown in Figure 3.…”

“…This may have been related to the complex household structure in China. The regression analysis results of the second and third levels of the tree were similar to those of previous studies, indicating that monthly income, years of education, and knowledge about sorting were still the most important factors that affected HSW source-separated collection [16,17,24,28,29]. Table 4 shows the regression results of the full-sample panel data from the STATA14 software.…”

Source separation of municipal solid waste: The effects of different separation methods and citizens’ inclination—case study of Changsha, China

“…Therefore, the source separation project is becoming a priority for the administrators of many cities in China. Eight cities in China, namely, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Xiamen, and Guilin, were chosen as the pilot cities for the implementation of the source separation of MSW at as early as June 2000 (Han and Zhang, 2015). However, at present source separation has yet to be widely implemented in these cities.…”

Does China’s Municipal Solid Waste Source Separation Program Work? Evidence from the Spatial-Two-Stage-Least Squares Models

“…Additionally, the municipal authorities did not provide enough support for it. Meanwhile, Han and Zhang (2017) [31] has proved the ineffectiveness of the pilot. The time interval between the third and the second pilot is relatively short, so the potential hysteresis of the second pilot may exit.…”