09/01/12 Chris Sherrington presents findings of waste prevention review

Eunomia has recently completed a study for Brussels Environment on the waste prevention effects of a range of economic instruments.  The key findings from this work were presented by Senior Consultant Chris Sherrington at a one-day conference in late November 2011 held in Brussels during the European Week for Waste Reduction.

The conference included delegates from across the EU, and speakers from the European Commission, Fost Plus (the Belgian producer responsibility organisation), ACR+ (the Association of Cities and Regions for Recycling and Sustainable Resource Management), the German Federal Ministry of the Environment, and the Irish Government among others.

The project undertaken by Eunomia involved:

• Developing an inventory of economic instruments that may have a waste prevention effect;

• Reviewing the available evidence on waste prevention effects for certain types of instruments; and

• Making recommendations as to how such instruments could most effectively be applied in future, taking account of supportive policy mechanisms, and considering how instruments could be operated in combination.

The strongest evidence of waste prevention effects was seen for direct and variable rate (DVR) charging, also known as Pay-as-you-throw (PAYT). Depending on the scheme type and charge levels, the quantity of waste collected in the examples that we reviewed can fall by over 10%. As a measure that can, in most cases in Europe, be introduced by municipalities, this was seen as having significant potential for widespread implementation. Importantly, DVR charging introduces a strong financial rationale for households to engage in further waste prevention measures. Underpinning DVR itself, a high background cost of residual waste treatment, of at least €80/tonne, gives the municipality the incentive to make the switch to a DVR scheme.

Product specific levies, such as that on plastic bags in Ireland were also shown to be effective, but care must be taken that the level is reviewed periodically and at least adjusted for inflation.  Such levies would be strongly complementary to DVR charging in respect of specific types of product. While DVR provides a strong incentive for households to avoid bulky or heavy packaging, plastic bags, for example, being lightweight and low volume would not be deterred to the same extent. In such cases, especially where there is a wide range of associated negative impacts (e.g. litter, including marine litter impacts from plastic bags) there is a strong justification for imposing a tax to internalise these external costs.

The evidence of waste prevention from subsidies for reusable nappies was less strong, and it is likely that there would be significant variation in uptake and effectiveness by location. All things being equal, in warmer, drier locations, where residents have large gardens, adopting this waste prevention measure will be more attractive than in colder, wetter areas where there is limited outdoor space.

Eunomia also reviewed the potential for greater use of variable rate VAT to bring about waste prevention, and suggested a number of possible policy options. In addition to the above, the report contains detailed findings related to waste prevention effects of producer responsibility schemes and deposit refund schemes.

The report can be found here.