IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fan/efeefe/vhtml10.3280-efe2021-001003.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessment of environmental and economic benefits of packaging waste system in Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Francesco Colelli
  • Edoardo Croci

Abstract

The paper quantifies social costs and social benefits of packaging waste management system in Italy from 2015 to 2030. Future social costs and benefits are estimated based on the growth of waste generated and on the stringency of recycling and landfilling targets. Packaging waste generation is projected based on macroeconomic factors, consumer practices and technological eco-innovations. Social benefits are derived by the reduction of externalities? correspondent to the achievement of packaging waste management targets. We quantify two environmental ben-efits: avoided emissions and raw materials saved. We find that social costs may rise substan-tially in the future, as total system?s operations costs in 2030 may increase by 48% with re-spect to 2015, due to the growth in the quantities of packaging waste generated. Meeting recy-cling and landfilling targets set by the new Circular Economy Package would imply a further 5% increase in total social costs in 2015. This latter increase is more than compensated by so-cial benefits related to the reduction in externalities due to more stringent targets.

Suggested Citation

  • Francesco Colelli & Edoardo Croci, 2021. "Assessment of environmental and economic benefits of packaging waste system in Italy," ECONOMICS AND POLICY OF ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2021(1), pages 37-58.
    • Handle: RePEc:fan:efeefe:v:html10.3280/efe2021-001003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=69807&Tipo=ArticoloPDF
    Download Restriction: Single articles can be downloaded buying download credits, for info: https://www.francoangeli.it/DownloadCredit
    ---><---

    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. Mazzanti, Massimiliano & Montini, Anna & Nicolli, Francesco, 2010. "Waste Generation and Landfill Diversion Dynamics: Decentralised Management and Spatial Effects," Sustainable Development Papers 60660, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    2. David N. Beede & David E. Bloom, 1995. "Economics of the Generation and Management of Municipal Solid Waste," NBER Working Papers 5116, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Nick Johnstone & Julien Labonne, 2004. "Generation of Household Solid Waste in OECD Countries: An Empirical Analysis Using Macroeconomic Data," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 80(4).
    4. Iafolla, Valentina & Mazzanti, Massimiliano & Nicolli, Francesco, 2010. "Are You SURE You Want to Waste Policy Chances? Waste Generation, Landfill Diversion and Environmental Policy Effectiveness in the EU15," Sustainable Development Papers 91010, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    5. Tsutomu Watanabe & Yuki Omori, 2020. "Online Consumption During the COVID-19 Crisis: Evidence from Japan," CARF F-Series CARF-F-487, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    6. Stern, David I., 2004. "The Rise and Fall of the Environmental Kuznets Curve," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 1419-1439, August.
    7. Cole, M.A. & Rayner, A.J. & Bates, J.M., 1997. "The environmental Kuznets curve: an empirical analysis," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(4), pages 401-416, November.
    8. Massarutto, Antonio, 2014. "The long and winding road to resource efficiency – An interdisciplinary perspective on extended producer responsibility," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 11-21.
    9. Massimiliano Mazzanti & Anna Montini & Roberto Zoboli, 2009. "Municipal waste generation and the EKC hypothesis new evidence exploiting province-based panel data," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(7), pages 719-725.
    10. Marques, Rui Cunha & da Cruz, Nuno Ferreira & Simões, Pedro & Faria Ferreira, Sandra & Pereira, Marta Cabral & De Jaeger, Simon, 2014. "Economic viability of packaging waste recycling systems: A comparison between Belgium and Portugal," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 22-33.
    11. Beede, David N & Bloom, David E, 1995. "The Economics of Municipal Solid Waste," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 10(2), pages 113-150, August.
    12. Mazzanti, Massimiliano & Montini, Anna & Nicolli, Francesco, 2009. "The dynamics of landfill diversion: Economic drivers, policy factors and spatial issues," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 53-61.
    13. Marie Kampmann Eriksen & Anders Damgaard & Alessio Boldrin & Thomas Fruergaard Astrup, 2019. "Quality Assessment and Circularity Potential of Recovery Systems for Household Plastic Waste," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 23(1), pages 156-168, February.
    14. Tsutomu Watanabe & Yuki Omori, 2020. "Online Consumption During the COVID-19 Crisis: Evidence from Japan," Working Papers on Central Bank Communication 023, University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Rayan Baalbaki & Walid Marrouch, 2020. "Is there a garbage Kuznets curve? Evidence from OECD countries," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(2), pages 1049-1055.
    2. Amandine GNONLONFIN & Yusuf KOCOGLU & Nicolas PÉRIDY, 2017. "Municipal Solid Waste and Development:The Environmental Kuznets Curve Evidence for Mediterranean Countries," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 45, pages 113-130.
    3. Liange Zhao & Jianfeng Zou & Zhijian Zhang, 2020. "Does China’s Municipal Solid Waste Source Separation Program Work? Evidence from the Spatial-Two-Stage-Least Squares Models," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-20, February.
    4. Antonella Vastola & Mauro Viccaro & Valeria Grippo & Francesco Genovese & Severino Romano & Mario Cozzi, 2023. "The Decoupling Effect in Italian Agricultural Waste: An Empirical Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(24), pages 1-14, December.
    5. Daniel Fiorino, 2011. "Explaining national environmental performance: approaches, evidence, and implications," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 44(4), pages 367-389, November.
    6. Carmen van der Merwe & Martin de Wit, 2021. "An In-Depth Investigation into the Relationship Between Municipal Solid Waste Generation and Economic Growth in the City of Cape Town," Working Papers 07/2021, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics, revised 2021.
    7. Mazzanti, Massimiliano & Montini, Anna & Zoboli, Roberto, 2006. "Municipal Waste Production, Economic Drivers, and 'New' Waste Policies: EKC Evidence from Italian Regional and Provincial Panel Data," Climate Change Modelling and Policy Working Papers 12053, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    8. John Gathergood & Fabian Gunzinger & Benedict Guttman-Kenney & Edika Quispe-Torreblanca & Neil Stewart, 2020. "Levelling Down and the COVID-19 Lockdowns: Uneven Regional Recovery in UK Consumer Spending," Papers 2012.09336, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2020.
    9. Thomas Longden, 2014. "Going Forward by Looking Backwards on the Environmental Kuznets Curve: an Analysis of CFCs, CO2 and the Montreal and Kyoto Protocols," Working Papers 2014.74, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    10. Michihito Ando & Chishio Furukawa & Daigo Nakata & Kazuhiko Sumiya, 2020. "Fiscal Responses to the COVID-19 Crisis in Japan: The First Six Months," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 73(3), pages 901-926, September.
    11. Md Danesh Miah & Md Farhad Hossain Masum & Masao Koike & Shalina Akther & Nur Muhammed, 2011. "Environmental Kuznets Curve: the case of Bangladesh for waste emission and suspended particulate matter," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 59-66, March.
    12. Cordier, Mateo & Uehara, Takuro & Baztan, Juan & Jorgensen, Bethany & Yan, Huijie, 2021. "Plastic pollution and economic growth: The influence of corruption and lack of education," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    13. Luzzati, T. & Orsini, M., 2009. "Investigating the energy-environmental Kuznets curve," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 291-300.
    14. Le Hoang Phong, 2019. "Globalization, Financial Development, and Environmental Degradation in the Presence of Environmental Kuznets Curve: Evidence from ASEAN-5 Countries," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 9(2), pages 40-50.
    15. Sukanya Das & Ekin Birol & Rabindra N. Bhattacharya, 2010. "Informing Efficient Solid Waste Management to Improve Local Environmental Quality and Public Health in West Bengal, India," Chapters, in: Jeff Bennett & Ekin Birol (ed.), Choice Experiments in Developing Countries, chapter 10, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Sabuj Kumar Mandal & Devleena Chakravarty, 2017. "Role of energy in estimating turning point of Environmental Kuznets Curve: an econometric analysis of the existing studies," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 19(2), pages 387-401, October.
    17. Massimiliano Mazzanti & Roberto Zoboli, 2008. "Waste Generation, Incineration and Landfill Diversion. De-coupling Trends, Socio-Economic Drivers and Policy Effectiveness in the EU," Working Papers 2008.94, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    18. Managi, Shunsuke, 2006. "Are there increasing returns to pollution abatement? Empirical analytics of the Environmental Kuznets Curve in pesticides," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 617-636, June.
    19. Le Hoang Phong & Dang Thi Bach Van & Ho Hoang Gia Bao, 2018. "The Role of Globalization on CO2 Emission in Vietnam Incorporating Industrialization, Urbanization, GDP per Capita and Energy Use," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 8(6), pages 275-283.
    20. Stern, David I., 2014. "The Environmental Kuznets Curve: A Primer," Working Papers 249424, Australian National University, Centre for Climate Economics & Policy.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:fan:efeefe:v:html10.3280/efe2021-001003. 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: Stefania Rosato (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/sommario.aspx?IDRivista=10 .

    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.