IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/recore/v51y2007i4p827-846.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Introduction of a waste incineration tax: Effects on the Swedish waste flows

Author

Listed:
  • Sahlin, Jenny
  • Ekvall, Tomas
  • Bisaillon, Mattias
  • Sundberg, Johan

Abstract

A tax on waste-to-energy incineration of fossil carbon in municipal solid waste from households was introduced in Sweden on July 1, 2006. The tax has led to higher incineration gate fees. One of the main purposes with the tax is to increase the incentive for recycling of materials, including biological treatment. We investigate whether and to what extent this effect can be expected. A spreadsheet model is developed in order to estimate the net marginal cost of alternative waste treatment methods, i.e., the marginal cost of alternative treatment minus avoided cost of incineration. The value of the households’ time needed for source separation is discussed and included. The model includes the nine largest fractions, totalling 85% (weight), of the household waste currently being sent to waste incineration: food waste, newsprint, paper packaging, soft and hard plastic packaging, diapers, yard waste, other paper waste, and non-combustible waste. Our results indicate that the incineration tax will have the largest effect on biological treatment of kitchen and garden waste, which may increase by 9%. The consequences of an incineration tax depend on: (a) the level of the tax, (b) whether the tax is based on an assumed average Swedish fossil carbon content or on the measured carbon content in each incineration plant, (c) institutional factors such as the cooperation between waste incinerators, and (d) technological factors such as the availability of central sorting of waste or techniques for measurement of fossil carbon in exhaust gases, etc. Information turns out to be a key factor in transferring the governing force of the tax to the households as well improving the households’ attitudes towards material recycling.

Suggested Citation

  • Sahlin, Jenny & Ekvall, Tomas & Bisaillon, Mattias & Sundberg, Johan, 2007. "Introduction of a waste incineration tax: Effects on the Swedish waste flows," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 827-846.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:recore:v:51:y:2007:i:4:p:827-846
    DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2007.01.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344907000055
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.resconrec.2007.01.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Björklund, Anna & Finnveden, Göran, 2005. "Recycling revisited—life cycle comparisons of global warming impact and total energy use of waste management strategies," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 309-317.
    2. Annegrete Bruvoll & Karine Nyborg, 2002. "On the value of households' recycling efforts," Discussion Papers 316, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    3. Gellynck, Xavier & Verhelst, Pieter, 2007. "Assessing instruments for mixed household solid waste collection services in the Flemish region of Belgium," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 372-387.
    4. Andreoni, James, 1990. "Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of Warm-Glow Giving?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(401), pages 464-477, June.
    5. Holmgren, Kristina & Gebremedhin, Alemayehu, 2004. "Modelling a district heating system: Introduction of waste incineration, policy instruments and co-operation with an industry," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(16), pages 1807-1817, November.
    6. Unknown, 2005. "Forward," 2005 Conference: Slovenia in the EU - Challenges for Agriculture, Food Science and Rural Affairs, November 10-11, 2005, Moravske Toplice, Slovenia 183804, Slovenian Association of Agricultural Economists (DAES).
    7. Husaini, I.G. & Garg, A. & Kim, K.H. & Marchant, J. & Pollard, S.J.T. & Smith, R., 2007. "European household waste management schemes: Their effectiveness and applicability in England," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 248-263.
    8. Jenkins, Robin R. & Martinez, Salvador A. & Palmer, Karen & Podolsky, Michael J., 2003. "The determinants of household recycling: a material-specific analysis of recycling program features and unit pricing," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 294-318, March.
    9. Berglund, Christer, 2006. "The assessment of households' recycling costs: The role of personal motives," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 560-569, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Santosh Kumar Sahu & Prantik Bagchi, 2023. "Waste from production: an analysis at the firm level," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 2641-2656, June.
    2. Goshu Desalegn & Anita Tangl, 2022. "Banning Vs Taxing, Reviewing the Potential Opportunities and Challenges of Plastic Products," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-16, June.
    3. Groot, Jim & Bing, Xiaoyun & Bos-Brouwers, Hilke & Bloemhof-Ruwaard, Jacqueline, 2014. "A comprehensive waste collection cost model applied to post-consumer plastic packaging waste," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 79-87.
    4. Emmanuel Kazuva & Jiquan Zhang, 2019. "Analyzing Municipal Solid Waste Treatment Scenarios in Rapidly Urbanizing Cities in Developing Countries: The Case of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(11), pages 1-21, June.
    5. Liu, Yili & Xing, Peixuan & Liu, Jianguo, 2017. "Environmental performance evaluation of different municipal solid waste management scenarios in China," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 98-106.
    6. Xi Sun, 2023. "The Role of Carbon Pricing in Promoting Material Recycling: A Model of Multi-Market Interactions," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2034, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hage, Olle & Söderholm, Patrik & Berglund, Christer, 2009. "Norms and economic motivation in household recycling: Empirical evidence from Sweden," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 155-165.
    2. Lee, Misuk & Choi, Hyunhong & Koo, Yoonmo, 2017. "Inconvenience cost of waste disposal behavior in South Korea," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 58-65.
    3. Ek, Claes, 2018. "Prosocial behavior and policy spillovers: A multi-activity approach," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 356-371.
    4. Luisa Corrado & Andrea Fazio & Alessandra Pelloni, 2020. "Pro-environmental attitudes, local environmental conditions and recycling behavior," Working Paper series 20-21, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis, revised Nov 2021.
    5. D'Amato, Alessio & Mancinelli, Susanna & Zoli, Mariangela, 2016. "Complementarity vs substitutability in waste management behaviors," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 84-94.
    6. Damiano Fiorillo & Luigi Senatore, 2020. "Pro-social behaviours, waste concern and recycling behaviour in Italy at the end of the 1990s," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 22(2), pages 127-151, April.
    7. Fiorillo, Damiano & Senatore, Luigi, 2016. "Self Image and Environmental Attitude and Behavior," MPRA Paper 74888, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Gilli, Marianna & Nicolli, Francesco & Farinelli, Paola, 2018. "Behavioural attitudes towards waste prevention and recycling," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 294-305.
    9. Marie Briguglio, 2016. "Household Cooperation In Waste Management: Initial Conditions And Intervention," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3), pages 497-525, July.
    10. Cecere, Grazia & Mancinelli, Susanna & Mazzanti, Massimiliano, 2014. "Waste prevention and social preferences: the role of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 163-176.
    11. Charles Ayoubi & Boris Thurm, 2023. "Knowledge diffusion and morality: Why do we freely share valuable information with Strangers?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 75-99, January.
    12. Briguglio, Marie & Delaney, Liam & Wood, Alex, 2018. "Partisanship, priming and participation in public-good schemes," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 136-150.
    13. Fontecha, John E. & Nikolaev, Alexander & Walteros, Jose L. & Zhu, Zhenduo, 2022. "Scientists wanted? A literature review on incentive programs that promote pro-environmental consumer behavior: Energy, waste, and water," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 82(PA).
    14. Brekke, Kjell Arne & Kipperberg, Gorm & Nyborg, Karine, 2009. "Reluctant Recyclers: Social Interaction in Responsibility Ascription," Memorandum 16/2007, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    15. Pfister, Naomi & Mathys, Nicole A., 2022. "Waste taxes at work: Evidence from the canton of Vaud in Switzerland," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    16. Marcinkowski, Andrzej & Kowalski, Arkadiusz Michał, 2012. "The problem of preparation the food packaging waste for recycling in Poland," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 10-16.
    17. Czajkowski, Mikołaj & Kądziela, Tadeusz & Hanley, Nick, 2014. "We want to sort! Assessing households’ preferences for sorting waste," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 290-306.
    18. Gorm Kipperberg & Douglas Larson, 2012. "Heterogeneous Preferences for Community Recycling Programs," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 53(4), pages 577-604, December.
    19. Heller, Marit H. & Vatn, Arild, 2017. "The divisive and disruptive effect of a weight-based waste fee," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 275-285.
    20. Matsumoto, Shigeru, 2020. "Do individuals free ride on participation in environmental policies? Personal values and waste management practices," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:recore:v:51:y:2007:i:4:p:827-846. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kai Meng (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/resources-conservation-and-recycling .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.