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

composition of the waste and the implications of this for emissions, assuming a
particular configuration of flue gas cleaning (as per the proposed Dublin incinerator).
For the second report, only high-end unit damage costs were used, whereas for the
first, low and high estimates were derived using different figures. Strictly speaking,
the only comparison is between the high values in the first report and the values in
the second. For incineration, disamenity accounts for a large proportion of this, while
for the first report, disamenity figures were not included.
For landfill, the change in assumptions regarding gas capture is the most important.
(This remains an area where there is surprisingly little agreement as to what the
correct figure should be).
Again the outcomes of these two reports show that the ordering of the lower tiers of
the waste hierarchy is not always supported by a cost-benefit appraisal.
61.3.5.1 A Note on Disamenity
The EFTEC and Enviros study underpinning the HM C&E work reviewed some of the
literature on disamenity. Cambridge Econometrics and EFTEC themselves carried out
a major hedonic pricing study which estimated the disamenity associated with
landfilling. 1180 This was based upon a hedonic pricing study, examining the effect of
proximity to landfills on house prices. The Enviros and EFTEC study updated the
estimates from the previous study (inflating the estimates in line with house price
inflation), giving a range for landfill disamenity of between £2.50 and £3.59 per
tonne.
However, the Eftec and Enviros study excluded disamenity impacts because it felt
that the only relevant study concerning incineration – from the US – was not
transferable to the UK context. Kiel and McClain looked at the effects on house prices
over time from the pre-rumour stage, through to the rumour stage, the construction
phase, the online phase, and later years of operation. 1181 They found that house
prices were affected only once construction began and peaked in earlier years of
operation before falling back slightly. The effect was a reduction of the order 3% per
mile in the vicinity of the incinerator.
At one level, the decision not to use the study’s findings was understandable. It was,
after all, carried out in the United States and the transferability of the results would
be questionable. However, the reasoning given is interesting. It was noted
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‘When this [the disamenity from the incinerator] is compared to the average
disamenity cost of landfill from the Defra study of between £551,000 to
£789,000 when converted to £2003 prices using house price index changes,
the results of Kiel and McClain seem disproportionately large. For this, and
1180 Cambridge Econometrics in association with EFTEC and WRc (2003) A Study to Estimate the
Disamenity Costs of Landfill in Great Britain, London:Defra, February 2003.
1181 K.A. Kiel and K.T. McClain (1995) House Prices during Siting Decision Stages: The Case of an
Incinerator from Rumour through Operation. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management
28, 241-255.