Curbside Recycling: Waste Resource or Waste of Resources?

David Aadland () and Arthur Caplan

Others from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: In this paper, we estimate the social net benefits of curbside recycling. Benefits are estimated using survey data on household willingness to pay (WTP) from over 4,000 households across 40 western U.S. cities. We calibrate WTP for hypothetical bias using an experimental design that contrasts stated and revealed preferences. Cost estimates are compiled from previous studies by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Institute for Local Self Reliance, as well as from in-depth interviews with recycling coordinators in our sampled cities. Remarkably, we find that the estimated mean social net benefit of curbside recycling is almost exactly zero. Therefore, the decision of whether to implement or maintain a curbside recycling program (CRP) must be done on a city-by-city basis.

Keywords: curbside recycling; willingness to pay; social net benefits; hypothetical bias; calibration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2003-10-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
Note: Type of Document - ; pages: 35
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/othr/papers/0310/0310001.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Curbside recycling: Waste resource or waste of resources? (2006)
Working Paper: CURBSIDE RECYCLING: WASTE RESOURCE OR WASTE OF RESOURCES? (2004)
Working Paper: Curbside Recycling: Waste Resource or Waste of Resources? (2003)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwpot:0310001

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Others from University Library of Munich, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by EconWPA ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).