Socially optimal and fund-balanced advanced recycling fees and subsidies in a competitive forward and reverse supply chain

Advanced recycling fees (ARFs) and government subsidy fees are important for curtailing the consumption of new products and encouraging recycling and disposal of end-of-life (EOL) products. We introduce a model consisting of a leader (the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA) and two groups of followers (MIS firms and recyclers) consisting of manufacturers, importers and sellers, and recyclers which compete in both consuming and recycling markets. The EPA determines the ARFs paid by the MIS firms and the fees subsidizing recyclers to maximize the social welfare in closed-loop supply chains where the MIS firms and recyclers attempt to maximize their respective profit functions. To compare with current practice, we describe a conceptual fund balance model to determine the ARF and subsidy fee on the basis of the balance between total collected ARFs and expenditure of subsidies. Using numerical examples for the laptop computer market in Taiwan, we demonstrate that our results outperform the current practice.     

废荧光灯的环境污染对策探讨

废荧光灯管中的有害物质如果处置不当,会对人体健康和环境造成危害。目前国内大部分废荧光灯管未得到无害化处置,主要在指定的法规、有效的政策以及完善的运营机制方面存在很多弊端,应引起社会各界的关注和政府部门的重视。本文结合国内外废荧光灯管回收处置现状,针对存在的问题,提出源头控制、分类收集、多渠道回收、建立资金及资金补贴机制以及技术手段措施,为从根本上解决废旧灯管回收难的问题,并探索社会源危险废物的管理提供对策建议。     

MOTIVATIONS AND BEHAVIORS THAT SUPPORT RECYCLING

This paper proposes that recycling researchers should pay attention to both attitudes towards recycling and the processes involved in recycling (recyclers' phenomenal experiences and organizing strategies). As predicted by Sansone and colleagues' model of how people induce themselves to engage in necessary but boring tasks, people who had reasons to persist at recycling (that is, who held strong prorecycling attitudes or had a social orientation towards recycling) were more likely to redefine recycling so as to emphasize its pleasures or the sense of satisfaction they gained from contributing to the environment. These people were also more likely to have developed a way of organizing recycling in their homes, to report few interferences with recycling, and—most important—to recycle on both short- and long-term bases. In accord with the model, people who became better recyclers by Time 2 had had stronger prorecycling attitudes at Time 1 than people who remained poor recyclers. Our results are consistent with the view that people who make a valued but uninteresting task more phenomenally interesting and more manageable are more likely to continue at the task. Sansone and colleagues' model provides a useful way to look at recycling and also suggests a new way that attitudes may be linked to behavior—via cognitive transformation of behavior.     

废物回收系统的社会评价方法

发展中国家已经将非正式回收系统进行了几次正规化,其目的是将其整合入正式的回收系统,其目的不仅仅是解决经济问题。而且还包括了非正规回收行业的社会问题,例如：社会歧视、教育的缺失以及健康和工作条件问题。然而,往往不能得到准确、正面的社会影响的评价和测量。本文的目的是根据社会生命周期评价法,用正确的手段对发展中国家的回收系统评价开发方法。以秘鲁城市案例研究表现了应用这一方法评价回收系统的案例显示了关于歧视、公认就业关系、社会效益的实现、体力工作条件和接受教育指标的负面绩效。关于结社自由、心理工作条件和社会的接受,城市回收业（从前的非正规）形成了较好的评价,而对于工作时间、最低、公平工资并没有获得好的评价。     

Impact of climate change on food security of small islands: The case of Mauritius

This paper studies the implications of high food prices resulting from climate change on food security in small islands, using Mauritius as a case‐study. Climate change may adversely impact prices of agricultural commodities. The study derives and calculates the government costs and the welfare effects of an increase in the world price of rice on consumers in Mauritius. Using an equilibrium displacement model, this study finds that an increase in the price of rice by 35%, as predicted by the literature on climate change and rice prices, will result in an increase of 28.8% in government spending, representing the additional outlays to support the subsidy scheme for food security. Using 2012 as the baseline, the welfare analysis results suggest that consumer surplus for ration rice consumers increases by 626 million Mauritian Rupees (MUR) or US$18 million while consumer surplus decreases by MUR454 million (US$13 million) for basmati rice consumers.     

Who are our informal recyclers? An inquiry to uncover crisis and potential in Victoria,Canada

What is considered garbage embodies a recoverable economic value, and environmental cost if not recycled. Throughout the world, the often marginalised and impoverished population earns a living through informal recycling. This is also true for Victoria, British Columbia, one of the most affluent cities in Canada. This paper discusses results of a participatory socio-economic survey involving informal recyclers in Victoria, BC to determine their livelihood determinants. The findings reveal that “binning” is an important survival strategy to generate income. A new waste-management model that considers the social and environmental context is needed. Inclusive public policies can respond to the livelihood concerns outlined in this paper by facilitating access to recyclable materials, devising occupational safety improvements and educating about alternative strategies for resource recovery. This model can contribute to the overall sustainability of the community by reducing the waste of resources and people, empowering marginalised populations and reducing the environmental impacts of natural resource use and waste disposal.     

Determining the socially optimal recycling rate

What municipal recycling rate is socially optimal? One credible answer would consider the recycling rate that minimizes the overall social costs of managing municipal waste. Such social costs are comprised of all budgetary costs and revenues associated with operating municipal waste and recycling programs, all costs to recycling households associated with preparing and storing recyclable materials for collection, all external disposal costs associated with waste disposed at landfills or incinerators, and all external benefits associated with the provision of recycled materials that foster environmentally efficient production processes. This paper discusses how to estimate these four components of social cost to then estimate the optimal recycling rate.     

Public understanding and its effect on recycling performance in Hampshire and Milton Keynes

Improving the recycling rate might be the primary aim of ‘recycling targets’, but good diversion from disposal can be achieved in different ways. Public participation is obviously critical to success; however it is not just how many people participate, but how well they do so, that is important. Analysis of public attitude research gave insight into how effectively recyclers were participating, and examined levels of public understanding. These were correlated with design parameters and publicity and education strategies to try to identify aspects of successful schemes that led to high quality of participation.     

Mechanical recycling of EOL concrete into high-grade aggregates

Recycling End of Life (EOL) concrete into high-grade aggregate for new concrete is a challenging prospect for the building sector because of the competing constraints of low recycling process cost and high aggregate product quality. A further complicating factor is that, from the perspective of the environment, there is a strong societal drive to reduce bulk transport of building materials in urban environments, and to apply more in situ recycling technologies for Construction & Demolition Waste. The European C2CA project investigates a combination of smart demolition, grinding of the crushed concrete in an autogenous mill to increase the liberation of cement mortar from the surface of aggregates and a novel dry classification technology called ADR to remove the fines. The feasibility of this recycling process was examined in a demonstration project involving 20,000 tons of EOL concrete from two office towers in Groningen, the Netherlands. Results show that the +4 mm recycled aggregate compares favorably with natural aggregate in terms of workability and the compressive strength of the new concrete, showing 30% higher strength after 7 days.     

Formalising informal solid waste recycling at the Pomona dumpsite in Harare,Zimbabwe

The role of informal recycling in poverty alleviation and solid waste management in cities in developing countries has been receiving increased attention. This study explores the integration of the informal recycling sector with the Harare City Council's solid waste management system, focusing on the Pomona dumpsite. The extent of this integration was compared with interventions proposed in InteRa, a new way of evaluating the integration of informal recyclers with the waste management systems of cities in developing countries. Our results suggest that the Harare City Council, which had the vision of transforming itself into a world‐class city, failed to fully integrate the informal recycling sector. We suggest to policymakers that complete integration of the informal sector will not necessarily prevent cities from achieving such visions. Rather, addressing the neglected interventions may help in achieving their visions.     

旅游产业财政补贴、社会责任与经济绩效——来自中国A股旅游上市公司的经验证据

从国家和旅游企业自身的角度出发,构建了社会、政府和员工三方面的社会责任评价指标体系,以A股19家旅游上市公司连续6年的数据为样本,对财政补贴、旅游企业社会责任和经济效益三者之间的关系进行了实证分析.实证结果表明,国家财政补贴可有效地激励旅游企业吸纳就业人员,但对员工福利水平的影响不明显,员工的福利水平长期被忽视.此外,基于企业履行社会责任视角,旅游企业主动履行社会责任需要付出一定的经济成本.因此,国家应继续加大对旅游业的财政补贴力度以达到缓解社会就业压力的目的;旅游企业应当积极地与政府、员工、社会建立良好的社会关系网络,重视员工的福利水平.     

How inclusive is inclusive recycling? Recyclers’ perspectives on a cross-sector partnership in Santiago de Chile

Inclusive recycling is the inspiring slogan of a project relying on a cross-sector (public–private–civil society) partnership implemented in Latin America with the objective to improve the socioeconomic conditions of recyclers. Through a qualitative study in Santiago de Chile, this paper seeks to understand how inclusive inclusive recycling is, by assessing how organised recyclers perceive the goals, the process, and the outcomes of this project. The main findings converge in observing a general low inclusion of recyclers, but they also enable to decompose the notion of inclusion into three dimensions: “inclusive goals” refers to the extent to which the goals of the recyclers are taken into account when designing the collaboration project; “inclusive process” refers to the extent to which recyclers are involved in the process of implementing the project; and “inclusive outcomes” refers to the capacity of the partnership to acknowledge the achievements of recyclers organisations before (and during) the project and to take into account the ongoing local dynamics when evaluating the project. These findings contribute to better understand the position and challenges of recyclers in this type of partnership and more generally to shed light on the potential power imbalance in waste management cross-sector partnerships.     

A profile of recyclers making special trips to recycle.

The aims of the research were to: (1) establish a profile of 'special recyclers', i.e. those who make special trips by car to recycle their household waste; and (2) establish whether the environmental burden resulting from their activities presents a significant environmental problem than needs pro-active management. The research was undertaken through surveys of recyclers at supermarket recycling centres and at civic amenity sites in Glasgow and across Ayrshire in south-west Scotland. Twenty-two percent of civic amenity recyclers made special trips to recycle, whilst at supermarkets less than 10% made special journeys. Those making special journeys tended to make shorter journeys than those combining recycling with another activity. Special recyclers also tended, on average, to recycle more items and bring greater weights of recyclable material per trip. No demographic difference was found between the special recyclers and the 'non-specials'. The environmental impact of consumer journeys to recycle was estimated from the statistic: 'The total distance travelled by car by special recyclers/the total weight deposited by all recyclers'. For the sites of this survey, this statistic ranged in value from 9 km tonne-1 to 106 km tonne-1. The lowest impacts of 9 km tonne-1 were at a supermarket site in a small town with a predominantly local catchment. The highest impacts were at a civic amenity site, in a major town, also used by residents from satellite communities. Over 50% of special recyclers cited nearness as their prime reason for choosing a particular site, compared with 32% of non-specials. Although special recyclers in Ayrshire did appear to act reasonably responsibly (environmentally), their activities produced additional environmental burden. Simulation studies demonstrate that up to 34% reduction in this burden may be possible through encouraging longer intervals between recycling trips. Three quarters of the environmental burden was attributable to less than 5% of the overall recycling population.     

“限塑令”对塑料袋回收利用影响的分析

针对我国塑料袋回收利用的现状及案例调研显示，“限塑令”对塑料袋的回收利用具有促进作用；但“限塑令”实施的预期效果目前尚不明显。“限塑令”有待进一步推广，相应的回收利用体系也亟待建设与健全。     

Sustainable recycling model: A comparative analysis between India and Tanzania

Higher economic growth in developing countries has caused higher amounts of wastes. Local government authorities in these countries usually fail to provide adequate services to dispose the increasing amounts of waste, resulting in threats for both the population and environment health. There is therefore an urgent need for recycling as a form of waste management in order to stop the devastating effects of solid waste in developing countries. Using a qualitative method of analysis, this study presents a model to measure and rank the sustainability of recycling programs in India and Tanzania. The model consists of six main constructs including “production, economic, governmental, social, technological, and international factors”. The results showed that India outperforms Tanzania in sustainable recycling programs: per capita waste generated per day in Delhi is higher than in Dar es Salaam; the government of India focuses more on developing recycling plans and techniques as compared to the government of Tanzania where the country is not actively involved in the recycling process; and the solid waste management planning in India is being performed better than Tanzania.     

Household Demand for Waste Recycling Services

Municipalities everywhere are coping with increasing amounts of solid waste and need urgently to formulate efficient and sustainable solutions to the problem. This study examines the use of economic incentives in municipal waste management. Specifically, we address the issue of recycling, if and when this waste management option is—on social welfare grounds—a preferred solution.A number of studies have recently assessed the monetary value of the externalities of alternative solid waste management options. In the present context, these subsidies could be interpreted as the implicit value of the benefits from reducing environmental externalities associated with landfilling as perceived by local government authorities. We surmise that the difference between mean households willingness to pay (WTP) for recycling services, via the purchase of a subsidized waste disposal facility, and the above (proxy) value of externalities reflects the difference between private and public perception regarding the negative externality associated with landfilling. We believe that this information is useful in determining the level of subsidization needed (if at all) to sustain any recycling program.The study is unique in the sense that its conclusions are based on revealed household behavior when faced with increased disposal costs, as well as information on WTP responses in hypothetical but related (and, therefore, familiar) scenarios. The article also explores the influence of the subsidization schemes on recycling rates. It was found that with low levels of effort needed to participate in a curbside recycling program, households participation rates are mainly influenced by economic variables and age, and households are willing to pay a higher price for the recycling scheme. When the required effort level is relatively high, however, households would pay a lower price, and the rate is influenced mainly by their environmental commitment and by economic considerations. We found that in both cases a subsidy would be required in order to achieve an efficient level of recycling. The median price that households are willing to pay for recycling devices is found to be about NIS 370 (New Israeli Shekel, approximately $90).     

Economic and policy instrument analyses in support of the scrap tire recycling program in Taiwan

Understanding the cost-effectiveness and the role of economic and policy instruments, such as the combined product tax-recycling subsidy scheme or a tradable permit, for scrap tire recycling has been of crucial importance in a market-oriented environmental management system. Promoting product (tire) stewardship on one hand and improving incentive-based recycling policy on the other hand requires a comprehensive analysis of the interfaces and interactions in the nexus of economic impacts, environmental management, environmental valuation, and cost-benefit analysis. This paper presents an assessment of the interfaces and interactions between the implementation of policy instruments and its associated economic evaluation for sustaining a scrap tire recycling program in Taiwan during the era of the strong economic growth of the late 1990s. It begins with an introduction of the management of the co-evolution between technology metrics of scrap tire recycling and organizational changes for meeting the managerial goals island-wide during the 1990s. The database collected and used for such analysis covers 17 major tire recycling firms and 10 major tire manufacturers at that time. With estimates of scrap tire generation and possible scale of subsidy with respect to differing tire recycling technologies applied, economic analysis eventually leads to identify the associated levels of product tax with respect to various sizes of new tires. It particularly demonstrates a broad perspective of how an integrated econometric and engineering economic analysis can be conducted to assist in implementing policy instruments for scrap tire management. Research findings indicate that different subsidy settings for collection, processing, and end use of scrap tires should be configured to ameliorate the overall managerial effectiveness. Removing the existing boundaries between designated service districts could strengthen the competitiveness of scrap tires recycling industry, helping to reduce the required levels of product tax and subsidy. With such initial breakthroughs at hand to handle the complexity of scrap tire recycling technologies, there remains unique management and policy avenues left to explore if a multi-dimensional solution is to be successful in the long run.     

碳中和视域下的垃圾精细化治理：日本吸收性卫生用品回收体系的构建经验及启示

通过循环利用，减少吸收性卫生用品产量和废弃量的陡增所带来的碳排放量，将加速碳中和进程。日本提供了吸收性卫生用品回收体系构建的先行经验，即以“政府引导—企业运作—社会团体协作”为顶层架构，明确制度、完备设施、完善渠道、宣传到户等。建议我国取长补短，在夯实法律法规和优化主体协同机制的基础上，重点着眼于突破技术壁垒、推动智慧化监管、深化绿色理念，以点带面推进吸收性卫生用品的回收循环试点，进一步推动垃圾分类精细化治理的进程。     

Recycling of electronic displays: Analysis of pre-processing and potential ecodesign improvements

This article analyses the current and future end-of-life management of electronic displays (flat screen televisions and monitors), and identifies and discusses possible ecodesign recommendations to improve it. Based on an investigation of the treatment of displays in two typical European recycling plants, key aspects and criticalities of the recycling methods (sorting, dismantling and pre-processing) are identified. Disaggregated data concerning on-site measurements of the time needed to manually dismantle different displays are presented. The article also discusses the potential evolution of end-of-life scenarios for electronic displays and suggests possible recommendations for recyclers, producers and policy-makers to promote resource efficiency in the recycling of such waste products. Data on time for dismantling the displays can be used to build measurers for voluntary and mandatory policies, to stimulate design innovations for products improvement, and to assess possible alternative treatments of the waste during the pre-processing at the recycling plants. Some quantitative product measures (based on the time thresholds for dismantling some key components) are also discussed, including an assessment of their economic viability. These measures can potentially be enforced through mandatory and voluntary European product policies, and could also be extended to other product groups.     

Current results and future perspectives for Japanese recycling of home electrical appliances

The Japanese system of recycling home electrical appliances has several unique aspects, including (1) a limited number of target appliances, (2) a recycling fee system that requires consumers to pay a recycling fee at the time of disposal, and (3) a direct recycling obligation for manufacturers, who have a physical, rather than a financial, responsibility for their end-of-life products. We studied data from 2001 to 2007 and found that the amount of four specified home electrical appliances and their materials that was recycled increased from about 319,249 tonnes in 2001 to about 447,262 tonnes—or 3.5 kg per inhabitant—in 2006. Recycling yield and development of recycling technologies have also improved. New recycling technologies have enabled a higher rate of material recycling of plastics (i.e., a closed-loop recycling). Improved eco-design, such as design for easier disassembly, has been promoted, and the higher quality of discarded appliances has enhanced the reuse market. Hazardous substances and fluorocarbons are being well managed. Problems with the recycling system include inelastic recycling fees, illegal dumping, illegal transfer by retailers, and the limited number of target appliances. Recycling fees could be reduced; this move might reduce the incidence of illegal dumping, as would engage stakeholders in collaborative efforts against illegal dumping. Illegal transfers could be reduced by improved traceability for retailers. Products such as liquid crystal displays, plasma display panels and clothes dryers have become increasingly common and should be also be targeted for recycling.