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

Generally, the view which prevails is that charging schemes are less likely to lead to
illegal activity where recycling schemes are convenient and broad in the scope of
materials they cover.
One issue with free market competition in collection is that private sector collectors
are not the ones who have to deal with the consequences of poorly designed systems.
If illegal tipping, or backyard burning is prevalent, the costs of dealing with this tends
to fall upon public authorities rather than collectors themselves (who may be the
source of the problem).
In Poland the situation is extreme. There are a vast number of uncontrolled dumpinggrounds
on which municipal waste is left. Although dumping-grounds are removed day
by day in many municipalities (in 2003, 6,109 of them were removed), in a very short
time they appear again. At the end of 2006, municipal offices counted 2,509
dumping-grounds on their area. Tojo estimates that approximately 10% of MSW is
dumped in this way. 192
The Central Statistical Office attributes this situation to the fact that not all
households are served by a waste collection system. 193 The fees charged for
collection (anticipated to be higher than necessary resulting from collection
inefficiencies where competing companies serve the same streets), as well as the
absence of a system to enforce the use of a collection service, may also have a strong
bearing here.
8.12 Lessons Learned
The international review of charging systems teaches some valuable lessons.
Charging tends to work best where:
157
� National policy sets a clear and structured agenda for local waste charging;
� The marginal benefit of avoided residual waste treatment / disposal is high;
� Separate collection of biowastes and recyclable collections include a wide
range of materials, and are convenient (typically kerbside collected) – this
tends to limit the likelihood of illegal disposal / contamination of separately
collected waste streams;
� Charge levels are set with a flat rate fixed fee supplemented by variable fees
so as a) to ensure problems of revenue stability do not arise and b) to ensure
variable rates are not so high they give rise to more compelling incentives to
fly-tip;
192 Naoko Tojo (2006) Evaluation of Waste Management Policies and Policy Instruments: Three Case
Studies, Report written as part of 6FP project HOLIWAST: Holistic Assessment of Waste Management
Technologies, International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University,
Sweden.
193 Central Statistical Office (2007), Municipal Infrastructure In 2006, accessed 13 th October 2008,
http://www.stat.gov.pl/gus/45_1726_ENG_HTML.htm
International Review of Waste Policy: Annexes