The Costs of Disposal and Recycling. An Application to Italian Municipal Solid Waste Services

Graziano Abrate, Fabrizio Erbetta (), Giovanni Fraquelli () and Davide Vannoni
Additional contact information
Fabrizio Erbetta: University of Eastern Piedmont
Giovanni Fraquelli: University of Eastern Piedmont

No 20, Working papers from Former Department of Economics and Public Finance "G. Prato", University of Torino

Abstract: The paper investigates the costs of waste disposal and recycling services by using a well-behaved Composite cost function model. Our estimates on a unique sample of more than 500 Italian municipalities highlight that the refuse collection technology exhibits constant returns to scale as well as scope economies between disposal and recycling. As far as the size of the municipality increases, scope economies rise up to 14%, but they are accompanied with overall diseconomies of scale. Our findings suggest that, on the one hand, joint management of disposal and recycling should be encouraged, and, on the other hand, that strategies aimed at increasing the share of waste sent for recycling would not imply a considerable increase in total costs.

Keywords: Solid waste; recycling; cost functions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D24 H42 L33 L99 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2011-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff, nep-env and nep-ure
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.bemservizi.unito.it/repec/tur/wpaper/n20.pdf First version, 2011 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Costs of Disposal and Recycling: An Application to Italian Municipal Solid Waste Services (2014)
Working Paper: The Costs of Disposal and Recycling. An Application to Italian Municipal Solid Waste Services (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tur:wpaper:20

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