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

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29/09/09
[…] As we are interested in the welfare effects of the different systems not
only the out of pocket costs (private costs) are important, but also the effects
on the environment of collection and treatment.”
A thorough review of this work is given in the OECD charging review but a summary of
the details and findings is useful here. The system examined was based entirely on
bring sites where the collection of dry recyclables (GPT, or glass, paper and textiles)
was concerned. A door-to-door collection for refuse and for VFG (vegetable, fruit and
garden) waste was in place. An important feature of the study was the attempt to
model different DVR charging systems.
The results of the analysis are shown in Table 8-4. One assumes that the
presentation is based upon costs per household (the study is not absolutely clear on
this). The suggestion is clearly that weight and sack based schemes (and to a lesser
extent volume or volume and frequency based schemes) deliver both private cost
savings and environmental improvement (relative to a flat rate fee baseline).
Some of the observations regarding net costs and benefits are important in the
context of changes in waste arisings and recycling:
“It should be noticed that the weight-based and the bag-based system
decrease the amount of solid waste with large environmental costs
substantially and increase the amount of recyclable waste with high
environmental benefits also substantially. From the view of private costs the
weight-based system performs better than the other systems. The reason for
this is the higher savings on collected waste. Therefore, in social terms the
weight-based system performs slightly better than the bag-based system.” 168
In a subsequent paper, the authors appear to have revised their views somewhat.
They conclude:
“We find that the weight- and bag-based pricing systems perform far better
than the frequency- and volume-based pricing systems. The bag-based system
seems to be the best option, as its effects are comparable to those of the
weight-based system and yet its administrative costs are far lower.” 169
The principle reason for this appears to be appreciation of the administrative costs of
running the schemes. The later study suggests these are €6.86 per inhabitant for a
weight-based scheme and €3.18 for a bag-based scheme. 170
168 E. Dijkgraaf and R. Gradus (2003) Cost Savings of Unit-Based Pricing of Household waste, the case
of the Netherlands. Research Memorandum 0209, OCFEB, Erasmus University, Rotterdam.
169 E. Dijkgraafand R. Gradus (2004) Cost Savings in Unit-based Pricing of Household Waste: The Case
of The Netherlands, Resource and Energy Economics, Vol.26 (2004) 353-71 (note, the former paper is
somewhat more extensive in its treatment).
170 These figures are taken from VROM (1997).