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

disposal and subsidies for recycling, higher taxes are used to represent the
differential between disposal and recycling.
52.10.1 Product Pricing
In most cases it is difficult to know exactly what effect the tax has had on product
prices. It is almost certainly true that the impact on end product prices is negligible
because for most sectors, the tax expressed as a percentage of turnover is small, and
although some evidence of this relates to taxes that are now at much higher levels
than when the analysis was carried out, the evidence suggests that the levels would
have needed to be some orders of magnitude higher to affect prices. 989 For example,
in Austria there is no evidence of an effect on product prices arising from the
introduction of the landfill tax. 990 Another good indicator of this is that whilst
environmental taxes may be accounting for a growing share of tax revenues in some
countries, the total tax take from landfill taxes tends to be a very small proportion of
overall tax revenues. With the K tax at £32 per tonne in 2008-9, the total tax take
was less than £1 billion of a total tax take in excess of £500 billion.
52.10.2 Trade
The Ecotec report indicates the awareness of no major impacts on trade. 991 As
regards waste itself, the costs of waste management already vary across countries
depending upon the legislative (regulatory) framework and the mix of waste
management options available. Therefore the trade or movement of waste will vary
depending on the adjacent countries regulatory conditions, and most importantly for
inter-continental trade, the transportation costs of waste (which are relatively high).
On mainland Europe, tax differentials, or bans imposed unilaterally, can have an
impact on trade where facilities are defined as recovery. For example, waste moves
across borders in pursuit of lower gate fees in different EU Member States. The Waste
Framework Directive now allows for Member States to limit movement of waste to
protect their own incineration capacity for municipal waste. This could have the effect
of limiting some of the effects of different prices across Member States.
52.10.3 Recycling / Waste Management Industry
The most significant observable effect of the policies will be to grow the recycling
industry, so notwithstanding the increased costs for disposal of ‘final residues’, the
cost of services are still likely to fall. The same could be said for the incineration
industry unless there is also an incineration tax present.
989 See Ecotec (2001) Study on the Economic and Environmental Implications of the use of Env. Taxes
& Charges in the EU.
990 Ecotec (2001) Study on the Economic and Environmental Implications of the use of Env. Taxes &
Charges in the EU.
991 Ecotec (2001) Study on the Economic and Environmental Implications of the use of Env. Taxes &
Charges in the EU.
788
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