The costs and benefits of packaging waste management systems in Europe: the perspective of local authorities

S. Ferreira, M. Cabral, Nuno da Cruz, P. Simões and Rc Marques ()

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Local authorities are generally in charge of household packaging waste management operations, particularly in countries with Green Dot schemes or similar extended producer responsibility systems. This leads to the need of establishing a system of financial transfers between the packaging industry and the local authorities (regarding the costs involved in selective collection and sorting). In the present study, the costs and benefits of recycling from the perspective of local authorities are compared for Portugal, Belgium and Italy (in Lombardia region), adopting the same economic-financial methodology. The results show that the industry is not paying the net cost of packaging waste management. If the savings attained by diverting packaging waste from other treatment operations are not considered, it seems that the industry should increase the financial support to local authorities. However, if the avoided costs with other treatment are considered as a benefit for local authorities, the costs are generally outweighed by the benefits and the financial support could, therefore, be reduced.

Keywords: environmental valuation; financial analysis; Green Dot systems; LCA; packaging waste; recycling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-05-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published in Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 1, May, 2017, 60(5), pp. 773-791. ISSN: 0964-0568

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Journal Article: The costs and benefits of packaging waste management systems in Europe: the perspective of local authorities (2017)
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