International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

quality for materials collected, though this typically only partially covers the collection
costs for these materials. Producer responsibility for packaging and other materials is
studied separately in Annexes 19.0 to 26.0.
8.2.3 United States
In the United States, the role of state government is to develop plans and standards,
while local government implements solid waste policy. Thus, individual states and
municipalities typically develop municipal solid waste (MSW) management plans
within which direct charging systems can be proposed and consulted upon. As such,
charging systems in the U.S. have evolved over time. In the past, markets for waste
were highly decentralised (with householders taking waste to dumps). Once it was
decided to run more formalized collection operations, two main routes were followed:
a) an equivalent to a local authority run collection service, accompanied by local
authority billing, and b) a contract / franchise approach, the key difference being that
in the latter the contractor / franchisee (not the municipality) was responsible for
billing households. 152
Municipalities have been able to pass ordinances asking households to 'hire their
own company', and although examples of this competitive model (similar to the
approaches in Ireland) still exist, a single collector is now the norm.
The number of municipalities using PAYT schemes in the US stands at more than
6,000, covering a population of 50 million. Pay-per-bin and pay-per-bag schemes are
the most commonly used, though weight based systems have seen increasing
prevalence (27 communities in the state of Maine alone by 2006). 153 154
8.2.4 Korea
Korea became the first country to introduce a mandatory DVR scheme country wide
when, in 1995, the volume-based waste fee (VBWF) was introduced. The VBWF is
essentially a pay-per-sack scheme under which households are required to place
residual waste in pre-paid sacks whilst recyclables are collected free of charge.
Charges are also levied on the collection of bulky wastes.
In recent years, the country has introduced free food waste collections for
households, having commenced collections for larger producers of food waste (such
as restaurants) in 1997. In 2005, the landfilling of kitchen waste from households
was banned.
152 Thomas Kinnaman and Don Fullerton (1999) The Economics of Solid Waste Management, NBER
Working Paper 7326, Massachussets, August 1999.
153 Lisa Skumatz (2002) Variable Rate or ‘Pay-as-you-throw’ Waste Management: Answers to
Frequently Asked Questions, Los Angeles: Reason Foundation, July 2002.
154 Jan Canterbury, Sue Eisenfeld (2006) The Rise and . . . Rise of Pay-As-You-Throw, MSW
Management, Elements, www.mswmanagement.com/elements-2006/waste-managementchallenges.aspx.
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