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Cash Recycling, Waste Disposal Costs, and the Incomes of the Working Poor: Evidence from California

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  • Bevin Ashenmiller

Abstract

This paper finds that bottle laws reduce the costs of waste streams by diverting new material into recycling programs, in addition to increasing the income of the working poor. New survey data from California indicate that between 36% and 51% of the material generated by the redemption centers in Santa Barbara, California, would not have been captured by existing curbside recycling programs. California’s bottle law has an unusual structure, with redemption centers that pay by counting containers or by weighing the material recycled. The evidence suggests policy makers should consider structuring new bottle laws to encourage broader recycling.

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  • Bevin Ashenmiller, 2009. "Cash Recycling, Waste Disposal Costs, and the Incomes of the Working Poor: Evidence from California," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 85(3), pages 539-551.
    • Handle: RePEc:uwp:landec:v:85:y:2009:i:3:p:539-551
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Don Fullerton & Thomas C. Kinnaman, 2002. "Garbage, Recycling, and Illicit Burning or Dumping," Chapters, in: Don Fullerton & Thomas C. Kinnaman (ed.), The Economics of Household Garbage and Recycling Behavior, chapter 2, pages 49-62, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. James D. Reschovsky & Sarah E. Stone, 1994. "Market incentives to encourage household waste recycling: Paying for what you throw away," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(1), pages 120-139.
    3. Porter, Richard C., 1978. "A social benefit-cost analysis of mandatory deposits on beverage containers," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 351-375, December.
    4. Eric D. Gould & Bruce A. Weinberg & David B. Mustard, 2002. "Crime Rates And Local Labor Market Opportunities In The United States: 1979-1997," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(1), pages 45-61, February.
    5. Ann Wolverton & Don Fullerton, 2000. "Two Generalizations of a Deposit-Refund Systems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 238-242, May.
    6. Hilary A. Sigman, 1995. "A Comparison of Public Policies for Lead Recycling," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 26(3), pages 452-478, Autumn.
    7. Palmer, Karen & Walls, Margaret, 1997. "Optimal policies for solid waste disposal Taxes, subsidies, and standards," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 193-205, August.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. W. Kip Viscusi & Joel Huber & Jason Bell, 2011. "Promoting Recycling: Private Values, Social Norms, and Economic Incentives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 65-70, May.
    2. Berck, Peter & Sears, Molly & Taylor, Rebecca L.C. & Trachtman, Carly & Villas-Boas, Sofia B., 2024. "Reduce, reuse, redeem: Deposit-refund recycling programs in the presence of alternatives," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    3. Tongzhe Li & Ana Espínola-Arredondo & Jill J. McCluskey, 2016. "Promoting Residential Recycling: An Alternative Policy Based on a Recycling Reward System," Games, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-18, August.
    4. Chi-Bin Cheng & Hsu-Shih Shih & Boris Chen, 2017. "Subsidy rate decisions for the printer recycling industry by bi-level optimization techniques," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 901-919, October.
    5. Kate Parizeau, 2017. "Witnessing urban change: Insights from informal recyclers in Vancouver, BC," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(8), pages 1921-1937, June.
    6. Acuff, Kaylee & Kaffine, Daniel T., 2013. "Greenhouse gas emissions, waste and recycling policy," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 74-86.
    7. Noleen R. Chikowore & John M. Kerr, 2020. "A Qualitative Inquiry into Collecting Recyclable Cans and Bottles as a Livelihood Activity at Football Tailgates in the United States," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-15, July.
    8. Hirotaka Kumamaru & Kenji Takeuchi, 2023. "The recycled content of plastic products: estimating the impact of a recycling law on the input mix," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 25(3), pages 355-376, July.
    9. Walls, Margaret, 2011. "Deposit-Refund Systems in Practice and Theory," RFF Working Paper Series dp-11-47, Resources for the Future.
    10. Viscusi, W. Kip & Huber, Joel & Bell, Jason, 2023. "Changes in household recycling behavior: Evidence from panel data," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    11. Bevin Ashenmiller, 2011. "The Effect of Bottle Laws on Income: New Empirical Results," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 60-64, May.
    12. Peter Berck & Marshall Blundell & Gabriel Englander & Samantha Gold & Shelley He & Janet Horsager & Scott Kaplan & Molly Sears & Andrew Stevens & Carly Trachtman & Rebecca Taylor & Sofia B. Villas‐Boa, 2021. "Recycling Policies, Behavior and Convenience: Survey Evidence from the CalRecycle Program," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(2), pages 641-658, June.
    13. Tamar Barkay, 2009. "Regulation and voluntarism: A case study of governance in the making," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 3(4), pages 360-375, December.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • Q52 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Pollution Control Adoption and Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling

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