The Waste Market

This book examines the creative ways in which a handful of European countries, namely Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and Sweden, have managed their waste collection market.

E. Dijkgraaf and R. H. J. M. Gradus 1. 1 Introduction In 2004 Elbert Dijkgraaf nished a PhD-thesis 'Regulating the Dutch waste market' at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. It was interesting that not much is published about the waste market, although it is a very important sector from an economic and environmental viewpoint. In 2006 we were participants at a very interesting conf- ence on Local Government Reform: privatization and public-private collaboration in Barcelona organized by Germa ` Bel. It was interesting to notice that researchers from Spain, Scandinavian countries, the UK and the USA were studying this issue as well. From this we brought forward the idea to publish a book about the waste market. Because of its legal framework we want to focus on Europe. In this chapter we give an introduction to this book. In the next paragraph we present a short overview of the waste collection market. Since 1960 the importance of the waste sector has increased substantially both in the waste streams and the costs of waste collection and treatment. Furthermore, we discuss policy measures to deal with these increases and give an overview of the different measures in - countries. In the last paragraph we present different chapters of our book. 1. 2 Empirical Update of the Waste Collection Market The Dutch case provides a nice example why studying the waste market is int- esting from an economic point of view.

Offers an insightful look into the waste collection markets from a European perspective Provides an In-depth analysis of the waste market in Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and Sweden Comparison of all available production modes (privatization, public firms, cooperation, municipal collection, contracting-out) and their effectiveness First book comparing different types of variable charging systems References to all available literature

Klappentext

Since 1960, the importance of the waste sector has increased substantially in many EU countries from an economic and environmental viewpoint, yet not much literature is readily available on the topic. Key questions answered in this book are whether the use of market oriented methods and organization forms can diminish the increasing costs and stimulate waste reduction and sorting.

The Waste Market undertakes the interesting task of examining the creative ways in which a handful of European countries, namely Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and Sweden, have managed their waste collection market. For instance, the Netherlands experimented a lot with competition and different types of ownership. It shows that competition is more important than ownership. The use of public firms, exceptional in other European countries, seems to be a powerful instrument to enhance competition. The lack of these firms might explain why private production is not always cheaper than own collection by municipalities in Sweden. Instead of public firms, cooperation is much more used in Spain and Norway to exploit economies of scale.

This insightful work also discusses variable charging that motivates customers to reduce waste. Different forms of variable charging are becoming more widespread in Belgium and the Netherlands and are very effective in reducing the amount of waste and help motivate customers to recycle their waste better. In the Netherlands different systems based on weight, bag, volume or frequency are used, which differ in effectiveness and implementation costs. The Flemish experience shows that variable charging can be even more effective, if it is combined with other policy instruments.

Inhalt
Cost Savings of Contracting Out Refuse Collection in The Netherlands.- Contracting Out Refuse Collection in The Netherlands.- Contracting Out in Sweden: Ownership and Production Costs.- Does Public Ownership Impair Efficiency in Norwegian Refuse Collection?.- Refuse Collection in Spain: Privatization, Intermunicipal Cooperation, and Concentration.- How to Get Increasing Competition in the Dutch Refuse Collection Market?.- Dutch Cost Savings in Unit-Based Pricing of Household Waste.- Assessing Instruments for Mixed Household Solid Waste Collection Services in Flanders.- Final Comments and Future Research.