The relationship between municipal waste diversion incentivization and recycling system performance

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344915301336

By: Dr. Calvin Lakhanhttp://wastewiki.info.yorku.ca/

lakhanc@yorku.ca

Overview• Study examined the effects of municipal recycling

incentivization on municipal recycling rates and program costs in Ontario (Blue Box)

• 223 Municipalities over a 10 year period• Study focused on:

• Examine the efficacy of Ontario’s municipal incentivization model

• Do municipalities respond to financial incentives by either increasing total recycling or decreasing costs?

Methods

• Data obtained from the Waste Diversion Ontario Data Call (223 municipalities over a 10 year period)

• Regression model developed to gauge how current year recycling rates & program costs are affected by prior year transfer payments

• Variables in the regression include:

RR = Municipal Recycling Rates (%)PC = Municipal Program Costs ($)TP = Municipal transfer payments ($)PE = Municipal promotion and education expenditures (per household) ($)PAYT = 1 if municipality implements pay as you throw scheme (0 otherwise)CURB = 1 if municipality implements a curbside recycling system (0 otherwise)INC = Median income Per Capita ($)AGE = Median AgeEDUC = % of Population with College education or higherDEN = Population Density per square kilometer 

Results

• No relationship between incentives and improved program performance (measured as either an increase in diversion or decrease in cost)

• Evidence to suggest the opposite is occurring – recipients of transfers perform worse over time, while those who are “punished” for being poor performers continue to experience lower relative levels of performance

Conclusions • Serious questions regarding the efficacy of Ontario’s

municipal funding methodology• No evidence to suggest municipal incentives encourage

waste diversion or reduce program costs• Stakeholder perception surrounding the efficacy of the

incentive model is largely negative