Incentives, Information, and Providing Alternatives
Kohei Watanabe
Department of Geography, University of Cambridge
As with all other environmental problems, waste management is an issue involving the whole society. All sectors in the society have a direct role in coping with this issue. While the aspect of waste treatment may be handled relatively as a technical matter, waste minimisation, the topic of this discussion probably requires contributions from the widest range of professions.
The one day seminar consisted of four working sessions, each 1 to 1 3/4 hours long. More than 30 delegates from all sectors including environmental groups, local and central government, consultants, producers, and retailers, took part in the discussion.
Mr Sherbourne's paper dealt with financial incentive. He discussed the desirability of variable charging for waste collection and disposal to households to give direct financial incentives to waste minimisation. References were made to various success cases abroad.
In the discussion, variable charging was supported by an observation that the landfill tax raised awareness and understanding of "externalities" among industries. On the other hand, there was a cautionary note that success cases have to be taken with "a pinch of salt", as waste management performance figures are not always based on the same definition and method of measurements; i.e. the existence of the "pitfall of self-selecting statistics". There is anecdotal evidence also, but it is not quantifiable.
It was thought that under current situation in the UK, it is politically difficult to implement this scheme. Worries on distributional effect of variable charging were expressed. This kind of measures can be regressive to income distribution. If waste collection and disposal service is an inferior good with low substitutability, variable charging will not function but only as a regressive taxation scheme. It is difficult to say how regressive variable charging is: Although several hypotheses and results of case studies were introduced, it is still not certain whether poorer households produce less or more waste compared to wealthier households. It was emphasised that in prior to implementation of variable charging, alternatives to disposal must be readily provided; e.g. infrastructure for recycling, and availability of products with less waste generating potential.
Popularity of wheeled bins may be a result of lack of this incentive. While wheeled bins provide direct benefits to WCAs in terms of labour costs and safety, it was pointed out that there is statistical evidence that wheeled bins increase waste and discourage recycling.
It was also noted that under CCT (Compulsory Competitive Tendering), contracts should be arranged in a way that will reward (give positive incentive to) the operator when waste reduction happens.
Parallels with charging mechanisms in other goods, such as water metering, taxation on cigarettes, and energy saving were mentioned. These experiences show that people will not necessarily switch from the conventional to the alternative even under existence of a financial incentive. Financial incentives can be provided in two ways; introducing taxation and giving rewards. Even with the same amount (in terms of monetary value) of incentive, these two may have different effects due to psychological effects. It was felt that rewards may be more effective than penalties.
In order to make people aware of the alternatives and its superiority, and to make the switching (inertia) barrier lower, provision of information is important, which leads to the next topic.
Education is still needed, for example, to combat prejudice against products with recycled contents. Information being publicised needs to be consistent across sources, in order for it to be convincing. Care must be taken not to confuse the public. Arguments need to be sorted out for a good understanding of the issues.
The objective of Hampshire CC was explained as "Not only promoting recycling but also change of lifestyles". This view was supported by following comments: The aim of recycling and waste minimisation is to use materials efficiently and to reduce consumption of resources. The impact to be alleviated /mitigated is not only those related to waste disposal within the UK, but also abroad especially in the developing countries where extraction of primary resources takes place. It was also noted that in order to achieve global equity, we need to reduce 80% of materials and energy throughput.
It was suggested that we have to question our "wants" and have to accept inconvenience to some extent. Although on the other hand there were doubts and worries expressed that we cannot go "back" in lifestyles. Even among the participants who are very aware about the problem, sympathies were shown to a remark made from personal experiences that the costs and lack of time forced her /him to take the more convenient and waste intensive mode.
Convenience is a critical element. As seen in the case of public transport, it is difficult to promote its use just by telling people to use more, it is essential to make the service convenient to the users. Curbside collection of recyclables is more convenient for households compared to "bring" schemes, and participation level of 70 to 80% has been reported. Still 100% participation cannot be expected. As a matter of practicality, it was suggested that 80/20 rule might apply here as well; we should aim for higher participation rate as possible, but also to compromise in getting the most resistant deciles involved. Deposit- Refund System can be in a way perceived as a scheme to compensate households for going through a bit of inconvenience of bringing the packaging back to the retailer.
An opinion was expressed that in order to promote waste minimisation, shopping at supermarkets should be discouraged. On the other hand, there were also voices that expect increased environmental roles to be performed by supermarkets. An observation was mentioned that people more respect information provided by supermarkets than those provided directly by the industry or the local authority. A number of participants suggested that the supermarkets provide more choices that are environmentally desirable. It was acknowledged that supermarkets are putting in efforts, such as using returnable transit containers and putting locally produced goods on their shelf. Still some initiatives are perceived as difficult to be implemented, due to intense competition in the retailing sector. There was a heated debate on why supermarkets cannot charge for carrier bags.
Not only the results of recycling and various charging schemes need to be made comparable. It was mentioned that there has not been a reliable data on how effective home composting is, and also a need of systematic evaluation of education efforts.
Although no hard conclusions were derived from the working sessions, some clues to solution were provided from each sectors involved in waste minimisation. It was also a valuable occasion to make links between various sectors.