Talking Trash: Valuing Household Preferences for Garbage and Recycling Services Bundles Using a Discrete Choice Experiment

Tracy Boyer ()

No 21074, 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA from American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association)

Abstract: Facing increasing costs for tipping fees and worker salaries, many smaller municipalities have begun to explore ways to adopt mechanized pay-as-you throw container garbage collection and changes to the basket of currently provided services, such as the addition of curbside recycling. Choice-experiments, while used widely in marketing, have not often been applied to environmental policy issues such as municipal waste. Using a discrete choice experiment offers a new way to examine the basket of services cities provide in waste collection given limited budgets and often vocal opposition to change among residents. A discrete choice model is developed to test household preferences for municipal waste services in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In addition, the study compares the willingness to pay estimates for adding curbside recycling service from the discrete choice model ($1.98/household/month) with results from an embedded contingent valuation question ($1.35/household/month). The survey shows that residents are willing give up one of two weekly garbage days to obtain weekly curbside recyclable collection. Furthermore, women are willing to willing to pay more than men for curbside collection of recyclables.

Keywords: Consumer/Household; Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 15
Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea06:21074

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.21074

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