The Setting Up of a Pilot Scale Pay-as-You-Throw Waste Tariff in Aveiro, Portugal

Abstract

Over the last 20 years solid waste has become an important issue in municipalities and counties and a problem for societies aspiring to economic, social and environmental sustainability. The new, recently approved Waste Framework Directive and Landfilling Directive have even higher targets related to municipal waste recycling and landfilling, and critical changes need to take place if European targets are to be realistically achieved. Pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) waste tariffs are an instrument that can help achieving recycling targets. PAYT works by linking the payment of a waste-collection tariff with the amount of waste discarded so that the payment increases when more waste is produced: "the more one discards, the more one pays". This work shows the early stages of PAYT implementation in pilot scale in a municipality in Portugal. The changes carried out in the collection infrastructures are described, as well as other complementary measures that were simultaneously implemented, namely reinforcement of the collection of dry recyclables and promotion of home composting.

Developing solutions for pay-as-you-throw information systems

“…Thus, waste tariffs cease to be collected in the traditional form of a fixed tariff (and/or associated with other factors) and are charged as a variable tariff, which depends on the quantity of waste produced. The advanced separation of waste that is inherently associated to a PAYT system acts as a positive reinforcement loop over the waste producers.Recently, in Portugal, Greece and Cyprus a novel project (LIFE-PAYT) was launched to assess the deployment (and associated reaction to) of pay-as-you-throw concepts in a diversity of scenarios (Dias-Ferreira et al 2019). A total of five municipalities were engaged in the process, from large municipalities to small towns:…”

“…Recently, in Portugal, Greece and Cyprus a novel project (LIFE-PAYT) was launched to assess the deployment (and associated reaction to) of pay-as-you-throw concepts in a diversity of scenarios (Dias-Ferreira et al 2019). A total of five municipalities were engaged in the process, from large municipalities to small towns:…”