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

the effect of certain variables on residual waste per inhabitant. The equation
developed suggests that for every additional Euro paid (on a variable rate) for residual
waste, quantities fall by around 400g per inhabitant. The average payment for
residual waste in Flanders is around €60-70 per household per year, giving a net
reduction of the order 24-28 kg per inhabitant per year (with additional effects
potentially attributable to the proportion of costs covered through direct means). The
Flemish experience is significant in that the country has set a target for residual
waste to be no more than 150kg per inhabitant across the whole region. The
equation does not give evidence of waste prevention per se. It does, however, give
some indication of the combined effect of recycling and waste prevention at the level
of the individual. It does so taking into account a range of variables including personal
income per inhabitant, collection frequencies, and whether organic wastes are
collected.
A demonstration of the price responsiveness of residual waste disposal to the cost of
sacks is given in Figure 8-5. The extensive literature review of price elasticities (ε)
under different charging schemes summarised within the Defra charging review is
reproduced here in Table 8-6. This table groups studies according to the type of
scheme used (with the exception of those looking at various scheme types). It can be
seen that there is a tendency for the elasticity (for refuse quantities) to increase
moving through volume-based, to sack-based to weight-based schemes. This ranking
reinforces trends demonstrated in the Dijkgraaf and Gradus work shown in Table 8-3
in Section 8.5.3 above.
Figure 8-5: Plot of Residual Waste per Inhabitant (y-axis) Against Sack Price (x-axis) for
Flemish Schemes
Source: Hogg, D., Wilson, D., Gibbs, A., Astley, M., Papineschi, J. (2006) Modelling the Impact of
Household Charging for Waste in England, Final Report to Defra.
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International Review of Waste Policy: Annexes