ABSTRACT
The chapters in this book are based on a series of papers that provide varying and complementary evidence related to the currently hot topic of waste management and waste disposal, which is becoming unavoidable in both developing and developed countries. For example, very recently, some areas in southern Italy have been experiencing a collapse in their waste management performance, which at the time of writing has still to be resolved, and is due mainly to a set of factors such as low proportion of separated waste collection, absence of serious alternatives to landfill, increasing scarcity of land in densely populated areas, failures in local policy implementation and property rights enforcement. The problem with waste management and correlated externalities resulting from landfill is that waste stock accumulates, and the process is difficult to reverse when the balance between inflows of waste generated and outflows of waste treated becomes uneven. Waste generation and waste disposal are becoming increasingly prominent
issues in the environmental arena, both in terms of policy perspectives and in the context of delinking analysis. Waste generation is increasing more or less proportionally with income, and the economic and environmental costs associated with landfill are also increasing. Thus waste management, from production to disposal, is an environmental issue no less relevant, and potentially more critical, than water scarcity or climate change. It interlinks with climate change, since incineration, recycling and landfill all result in the production of greenhouse gases (GHG). Diversion of waste from landfill (landfill diversion) is one of the options being used to reduce these emissions. The main questions addressed in this book refer to the extent to which the
diverse waste flows generated by household and economic activities are decoupled or not from the growth in income per capita. Decoupling or delinking analysis, to some extent related to the more specific realm of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC, see Figure 1 for an intuitive sketch) and to conceptual frames such as IPAT (an accounting identity used to identify the relative role of P – population level, A – affluence and T – technology for the observed change in I – impact over time and/or across countries), is the primary tool used to assess whether or not environmental performance is improving. Without any other judgements (from outside economics, from
saving capital-based rules of sustainability) it should be noted that delinking per se cannot lead automatically, even in its absolute form, to sustainability. In other words, observing a decrease in environmental pressures – for waste, the set of externalities associated with waste generation, incineration and landfill – along the dynamics of economic growth is a positive element but does not automatically imply that sustainability will be achieved. Nevertheless, absolute decoupling is the way towards sustainable performance: increasing the environmental efficiency of economic growth by moving the environmentincome relationship below critical thresholds in terms of environmental impacts. European Union (EU) policy thematic strategies on resources and waste
include reference to absolute and relative delinking indicators (EC 2003a, b; Jacobsen et al. 2004). The former, according to the EKC framework, is a negative relationship between economic growth and environmental impacts associated with the descending side of an inverted U shape. The latter is a positive, but decreasing in size, income-environment relationship – the ascending path – a positive, lower than unity elasticity in economic terms. No delinking is observed in the ascending part of the EKC, in case of a unitary or higher than unity elasticity. The achievement of increasing delinking experience is a prime necessity for waste, an issue that is of equal relevance in terms of environmental impact and economic costs, to climate change. The European Environmental Agency (EEA), has often acknowledged
that ‘it is increasingly important to provide answers to these questions because waste volumes in the EU are growing, driven by changing production and consumption patterns. It is also important because there is growing interest in sharing best practice and exchanging national-level experience across Europe, with the common goal of achieving more cost-effective solutions to the various problems being faced’ (EEA 2007: 4). Indicators of decoupling/delinking are becoming increasingly popular for
detecting and measuring improvements in environmental/resource efficiency with respect to economic activity at the level of and in connection with policy making and policy evaluation. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD 2002) has conducted extensive research
into the use of decoupling indicators for reporting and policy evaluation purposes, and the EEA’s state-of-the-environment reports (EEA 2003a, b, c) use a number of decoupling or resource efficiency indicators. EEA (2006) highlights the importance of market-based instruments for achieving a stronger delinking for waste indicators. Landfill diversion is a specific and important element of EU policy as a
means to improve the use of resources and reduce the environmental impacts of waste management. Following the targets provided by Directive 1999/31/EC on Landfill of Waste, Member States are required to establish national strategies to reduce the amount of biodegradable municipal waste going to landfill. This Landfill Directive is expected to have a major effect on the design of future waste management systems and policy making. In addition, GHG emissions have become more and more relevant in
relation to waste and its disposal. The landfill of biodegradable waste
The reasoning surrounding decoupling can be framed by reference to the EKC model, which describes the state of the dynamic relationship between environmental pressures and economic drivers. This model proposes an inverted U-shaped relationship between per capita income and environmental pressure. The model implies that in the first stage an increase in income leads to an increase in environmental pressure. In the second stage, above a certain level of income, the environmental pressure will decrease, as the economy is better able to invest in less polluting technology, consumers reallocate expenditure in favour of greener products, there are more awareness-raising campaigns, etc. Even policies that are aimed at reshaping the ‘business as usual’ trend towards more environmentally efficient and sustainable paths are likely to be implemented with an increasing strictness and effectiveness in terms of economic development. At a later stage, there might be a potential recoupling, observed for some pollutants, where environmental pressure grows in spite of increasing income. The scale effects of growth again will outweigh improvements in the efficiency of resource use and management. A recoupling could thus emerge in well organized waste management systems, if the pressures from the production of goods and final disposal economic and environmental effects are taken into account, following a life cycle approach (LCA) perspective. In this context environmental pressure involves: waste generation,
landfill or incineration. We explore how this relationship is altered by the inclusion of socio-economic and policy drivers. Drivers fall into three categories: economic, socio-economic and policy-based.
