Pay-As-You-Throw

This is another piece of information that goes with the composting post. I had to research this in school and this was the conclusion that I found to controlling the amount of trash. This also was the reason I wanted to overhaul our families amount of trash. Enjoy!

Many communities are concerned with the issue of proper municipal solid waste disposal and recycling and often suffer the disadvantages from these actions. Municipal solid waste (MSW)- consists of trash or garbage from homes, businesses, and institutions. Many government leaders and economists have struggled with the most advantageous way to dispose of municipal solid waste and reduce it to the benefit of the economy and the communities. The traditional way of disposing of waste is through fixed rate fees, or individual house fees, apartment fees or taxes. This benefits the economic side of waste disposal to a degree but does nothing for the decrease in total waste that is created. Household and Industrial waste seem to make up the majority of the municipal solid waste that is being created. From an economic standpoint the price of the waste itself is not offset by the fees being charged to dispose of it. Not only is this a problem but space is limited for large cities making the price higher as waste will need to be shipped to another area. There have been several types of policies that intended to fix this problem such as municipal recycling, discontinuing of certain products such as plastics, and other harmful resources. There has been a switch from using virgin material to using recycled materials in an effort to cut down on the total waste. It is truly the recycling of materials that seem to be the key to reducing municipal solid waste and increasing the benefit for the public and government. With the natural flow of idea’s the creation of the pay-as-you-throw programs where put into action, which have shown the ability to accomplish several different tasks to help reduce the waste in an economic way.

            The traditional way to deal with trash disposal is through a fixed rate disposal fee either through household taxes in the case of governmental municipal waste organization or through a private sector municipal waste company. Although this was a great way to deal with the disposal of waste it caused added expenses, and was a never ending cycle that would eventually take over. It is estimated that each person produces 4.6 lbs. of waste a day (Feild, 2009). This will eventually create the problem of space management as the amount of waste for large cities will outgrow its capacity and then waste will then need to be shipped to other less populated places furthering the price tag on the disposal of waste. The rate of increase in MSW has grown substantially in the past years from 6.3% in the 60’s to 33% in the current year (Feild, 2009). This is a country wide problem but not specific to all cities, and the immediate problem tends to be focused towards large cities that have large quantities of people in a small area.  The answer to this problem is through the reduction of waste.

            Through pay-as-you-throw programs people will be directly responsible for the amount of MSW that they use and dispose of. The success of this type of program in terms of economics and social factors can be seen from a 1994 demonstration project in Marietta, Georgia. The community was split into two groups those who would continue to pay a fixed rate for service, and then those who would pay for the amount of MSW they disposed of (Morris, 1999). Of the half that had to pay for the amount of MSW there were two separate groups one who would use a reusable trash receptacle and pay for each trash receptacle used and the those who would use non-reusable trash bags (Morris, 1999). Of the 9,194 households who participated in the pay-as-you-throw program all of the households showed signs of decrease in the waste that was disposed of and took actions to arrange other options for the waste. These options included composting of food waste material, repurposing of materials and recycling available materials. This type of success is found throughout the communities who adopt this type of program. The economics of this type of program are hard to ignore.

            Solid waste disposal from an economic standpoint is hard to enforce due to the pricing challenges that face even local municipalities. The other issue that MSW poses is the environmental factor and the cost of this should be reflected in the price of disposal.  “Discarded solid waste involves environmental costs that ought to be reflected in prices paid by consumers facing different disposal options. Solid waste disposal services are paid for in most communities through flat fees levied to cover the cost of collection and disposal. These fees can go up or down to reflect overall disposal costs (fees are going up in many cases because of increased scarcities of landfill space), but in many places the per family fees do not vary according to the quantities of material discarded per family. Thus, there is no incentive for consumers to be concerned about the amounts of solid waste they discard, nor any incentive to reduce the amounts of “excess” packaging materials that accompany their purchases. However, pay-as-you-throw systems are increasingly common and give incentives for recycling as a waste disposal method for households. Meanwhile total waste continues to increase (Feild, 2009).”The Environmental Protection Agency gives the same information stating that pay-as-you-throw encourages environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, and equity among communities (Environmental Protection Agency , 2013).

In conclusion with the natural flow of idea’s the creation of the pay-as-you-throw programs where put into action, which have shown the ability to accomplish several different tasks to help reduce the waste in an economic way. Traditionally the rise in the cost of municipal waste disposal was hidden in taxes, as well as a fee charged to the residents, this caused the residents who recycled to cover the cost of other peoples wastefulness and didn’t encourage reductions in any way. Economically pay-as-you-throw encourages each individual to pay a flat rate fee for the waste they dispose of. This covers rising costs, residential control over how much they spend, fewer taxes, and cover costs for municipal disposal by the government and the communities.  It is believed that the pay-as-you-throw programs will be the new wave of municipal solid waste disposal that will be adopted by communities. It can be said that these programs can solve the problem of increasing amounts of solid waste being disposed of, cover the rising costs of disposal procedures, cut back on the disadvantages of disposal practices, and help curve the economic strain traditionally put on municipal waste disposal methods.

References:

Environmental Protection Agency . (2013, July 15). Pay-As-You-Throw . Retrieved from Environmental Protection Agency : http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/conserve/tools/payt/index.htm

Feild, B. F. (2009). Environmental Economics, An Introduction. McGraw Hill.

Morris, G. H. (1999, November ). Household Behavior under alternative pay-as-you-throw systems for solid waste disposal. Land Ecoomics, 75(4), 515.