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search-article2015
WMR0010.1177/0734242X15611738Waste Management & ResearchVujić et al.
Original Article
Municipal solid waste development phases: Evidence from EU27
Waste Management & Research 2015, Vol. 33(12) 1112–1120 © The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0734242X15611738 wmr.sagepub.com
Goran Vujić1, Alvaro Gonzalez-Roof2, Nemanja Stanisavljević1 and Arne M Ragossnig3
Abstract Many countries in the European Union (EU) have very developed waste management systems. Some of its members have managed to reduce their landfilled waste to values close to zero during the last decade. Thus, European Union legislation is very stringent regarding waste management for their members and candidate countries, too. This raises the following questions: Is it possible for developing and developed countries to comply with the European Union waste legislation, and under what conditions? How did waste management develop in relation to the economic development in the countries of the European Union? The correlation between waste management practices and economic development was analysed for 27 of the European Union Member States for the time period between 1995 and 2007. In addition, a regression analysis was performed to estimate landfilling of waste in relation to gross domestic product for every country. The results showed a strong correlation between the waste management variables and the gross domestic product of the EU27 members. The definition of the municipal solid waste management development phases followed a closer analysis of the relation between gross domestic product and landfilled waste. The municipal solid waste management phases are characterised by high landfilling rates at low gross domestic product levels, and landfilling rates near zero at high gross domestic product levels. Hence the results emphasize the importance of wider understanding of what is required for developing countries to comply with the European Union initiatives, and highlight the importance of allowing developing countries to make their own paths of waste management development. Keywords Waste management development phases, landfill diversion, gross domestic product, economic development, developing and transition countries, European Union requirements
Introduction Waste management in developing countries faces the influence of upcoming legislation, recommendations from experts from all over the world and different interest groups. Drivers that are widely recognised in the scientific and stakeholder communities (Agamuthu et al., 2009; Marshall and Farahbakhsh, 2013) are not often incorporated as predominant factors in the practice for development of solid waste management (SWM) systems. Hence, many developing countries install waste treatment capacities that often do not comply with the local conditions. For nonEuropean Union members this is mainly driven by the fact that they want to develop waste management following the intentions and regulations of the European Union (EU) as the part of the world with one of the most advanced waste management systems. Additionally, it is often the case that some foreign consultants, in order to easily overcome problems, recommend technologies that do not reflect the actual needs and the development stage of waste management in the developing countries (Coffey and Coad, 2010; Yousif and Scott, 2007). Reducing, reusing and recycling, the 3R policy, as a guideline for improving the protection of human health, and environment, is easily acceptable for politicians and is well received by the
public. However, the limitations of introducing these principles lies in the fact that the majority of developing countries do not have the capacity to embed them, and thus first must be able to cope with the challenges associated with integrating the informal sector (Ezeah et al., 2013; Velis et al., 2012) and illegal and uncontrolled landfilling, as predominant sink for generated waste in these countries (Fauziah and Agamuthu, 2009; Stanisavljevic et al., 2012). In a medium time horizon it is very important to identify affordable solutions, which can be implemented quickly and give to citizen’s affordable improvement of waste management in their societies, which in most cases means replacing the
1Faculty
of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia 2Ecole des mines d’Alès, Alès, France 3UTC UmweltTechnik und GeoConsulting ZT GmbH, Vienna, Austria Corresponding author: Nemanja Stanisavljevic, Faculty of Technical Sciences, Department of Environmental Engineering, University of Novi Sad, Trg Dositeja Obradovića 6, Novi Sad, Serbia. Email: [email protected]
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Vujić et al. open dumps with controlled sanitary disposal sites (Fellner and Brunner, 2007; Vujić et al., 2010; Wilson et al., 2012). Many factors and drivers influence the implementation of different waste treatment options, for example, demand for specific waste management solutions, political stability, sufficient financial resources and public acceptance (Ragossnig and Vujić, 2015), but the major challenge faced in implementing sustainable waste management solutions in developing countries is the identification of appropriate and affordable concepts. However, there are not many studies that address the connection between waste management development and economic growth of a nation. Okumura et al. (2014) assessed the historical trend of gross domestic product (GDP) growth and waste treatment implementation in Japan, Korea and China. For EU-member countries there is research that has been performed looking on the development of energy from waste (Sommer and Ragossnig, 2011), while Klampfl-Pernold and Gelbmann (2006) aim to identify different phases of waste management practice based on the European situation. On a worldwide level, a recent study of Wilson et al. (2012) defined the factors they found crucial for sustainable waste management systems. The authors made a comparison between gross domestic income (GDI) per capita and human development index (HDI) per capita and waste management practices. In addition, Brunner and Fellner (2007) clearly stated that every further development of waste management systems of societies, must be followed by previous definition of its economic boundaries. Hence, each country or region must first access its economic capacity for waste management and then develop the waste management system accordingly. In the global waste management community, the linkage between the level of economic development (GDP level) and a country’s potential to reduce its landfilled waste represents an issue, which is often discussed and emphasized (European Commission, 1999). It seems safe to argue that the higher the economic development of a country, the more resources it has to treat the waste using alternatives to direct landfilling and thus the landfilling waste ratio is reduced. On the other hand, if a country has a lower economic development, it has fewer resources to allocate into alternative energy and material recovery infrastructure. There is evidence of waste generation and disposal delinking with economic development in the EU25 (Mazzanti and Zoboli, 2008, 2009). However, there is only evidence of absolute delinking for landfilled waste. The drivers of the absolute delinking of landfilled waste and GDP seem to be the EU waste policy and directives, in addition to increasing land-use related costs for waste disposal, therefore, the importance is the time period between now and the time when these policies and directives were implemented (late 1990s, early 2000s). In addition, the same authors suggest that the period from 1995 to 2005 might be already in the ‘right’ descending side of the inverted U-shape of the Waste Kuznets Curve. This article tries to outline and document the impact level of economic development expressed as GDP on the waste management status quo in the EU27 (European Union 27 member
States). Hence, the aim of this research is twofold: (i) to highlight the great differences in waste management between the EU member states and explaining part of these differences by the level of economic development (expressed as GDP); (ii) to define waste management development phases in the EU member states based on past experiences of municipal solid waste (MSW) development rather than good intentions. The objective of presenting the MSW management developmental phases is non other than to describe the possible future MSW management development of developing countries by studying how EU member states developed their MSW management systems. Thus, the focus of this research is describing the ‘shortest’ or most efficient possible way to reach higher diversion of waste from landfills in an undeveloped MSW management system following the proposed EU waste hierarchy.
Methodology and data Data The data used in this article is extracted from the EUROSTAT database covering a period of 12 years, from 1995 to 2007, for the EU27 member states. The time period between 1995 and 2007 is very important for the advances in waste management in Europe, in particular regarding the landfilling of waste, as some of the member states defined specific targets for landfilling to be met by 2005 (landfill ordinances in Austria and Germany). So in this time period the waste management sector of these countries developed based on clear political targets and regulatory frameworks. By the end of this period, some of the more advanced EU member states achieved a landfilling rate close to 0%. Additionally, during this period, countries with a low level of waste management development joined the EU. Hence the insights about their accommodation within the EU waste management policy requirements as well as the GDP growth can be assessed. The EU27 member states are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom.
Variable definition The MSW management variables in this study are MSW Landfilled (MSW-LANDF), MSW Incinerated (MSW-INCIN), MSW Recycled (MSW-RECYC) and MSW Biologically Treated (MSW-BIOTR) (Table 1). The economic development of the member states will be assessed using their GDP. For the analysis we assume that MSW management is dependent on economic development (Brunner and Fellner, 2007; Okumura et al., 2014; Wilson et al., 2012), therefore GDP is used as the independent variable and the waste indicators as dependent variables. To account for differences in waste generation between the member states and to make comparisons easier, the dependent variables are transformed and expressed as a percentage of the total waste
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Table 1. Variable description. Variable name
Variable code
Description
Units
Gross domestic product
GDP
Euros per capita/year
MSW landfilled MSW incinerated
MSW-LANDF MSW- INCIN
MSW recycled MSW biologically treated
MSW-RECYC MSW-BIOTR
Gross domestic product at current prices, 2013 Landfilled MSW in the system MSW incinerated with or without energy recovery in the system MSW recycled in the system MSW composted and digested in the system
Percentage of total treatment Percentage of total treatment Percentage of total treatment Percentage of total treatment
MSW: municipal solid waste.
treated, that is the sum of MSW-LANDF, MSW-INCIN, MSWRECYC and MSW-BIOTR (Figures 1 and 2). The variables in general do not follow a normal distribution. This is very important as it will not be possible to use parametric approaches to analyse available data.
variables, therefore, the effect of all the dependent variables are included in the estimation by using the MSW-LANDF as a percentage of the total waste treated.
Tests and statistical methods
A regression equation was developed to explore the ‘shortest’ possible path for developing a country’s waste management to reach landfilling rates of near 0% considering the level of economic development. Instead of using all member states in the EU27, it was decided to limit the countries to the ones that best represented the MSW management development previously described. Therefore, countries like Bulgaria or Denmark are not useful, as the former has not yet started this process, while the latter reached the end of the final stage before 2007 and can disturb the equation, which aims to describe the process of landfill diversion. In addition, countries like the United Kingdom or Ireland were also excluded from the regression, as these countries have much higher landfilling ratios than it is expected from their GDP. It is clear that UK and Ireland would follow a different regression line than most of the other countries. This is simply because at the time of mandatory reductions of landfilled waste and increased recycling, these countries already had a higher GDP than most of the other EU member of future member states. Moreover, it can be seen from (Figure 2) how these countries follow the same process as the other countries; just that they start much ‘later’, that is at higher GDP values (around 30,000 Euros). If they were included, the equation would not represent the most realistic pathway to reach lower landfilling rates, as is the intention of the article. Therefore, the countries chosen for this purpose are Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Estonia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Netherlands and Sweden. From the regression equation, it is possible to estimate when it would be reasonable to expect a developing country to reach a certain landfill ratio (Figure 3). This way, countries should not be expected to reach landfilling ratios below 40% until their GDP reaches a value near 22,000 Euro per capita. In addition, landfilling ratios near 0% are only expected to be reached at GDP levels of over 30,000 Euros (Table 2):
The variables were statistically analysed to assess the relationship between waste management and economic development. The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (r) is a measure of the linear correlation between two variables (X and Y), giving a value between +1 and −1. The sign +/– indicates the direction of the relationship (positive or negative) and the magnitude indicates the strength of the relationship, ranging from 0 for no relationship, to 1 for total correlation. Pearson’s correlation coefficient between two variables is defined as the covariance of the two variables divided by the product of their standard deviations. The correlations between variables are used to assess the strength of the relationship between waste management and economic development. Simple linear regression is the ordinary least squares (OLS) estimator of a linear regression model with a single explanatory variable. The slope of the fitted line is equal to the correlation between Y and X corrected by the ratio of standard deviations of these variables. The intercept of the fitted line is such that it passes through the centre of mass of the data points. The OSL regression fits models of the form:
Yi = β 0 + β1 X 1i + ⋅⋅⋅ + β k X k i ; i = 1 n (1)
where Yi is the predicted value of the dependent variable for observation i; Xji is the jth predictor value for the ith observation; β0 is the intercept, βj is the regression coefficient for the jth predictor; and n is the number of observations and k is the number of predictor variables. Regression is used to predict a response variable from one predictor variable. Because the variables are expressed as a percentage of the total waste treated, the regression analysis is carried out with the independent variable GDP and the dependent variable MSW-LANDF. The difference between MSW-LANDF and the total waste treated is the sum of the other dependent
Regression
MSW − LANDF = 112.99 − 0.003358 ⋅ GDP (2)
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Figure 1. Pearson product moment correlation coefficients and scatter plots. In green, the regression line for the relationship is presented (Luxemburg, owing to high GDP per capita compared with the rest of EU27, it appears well off to the right in the graphs (see Figure 2, pay attention to the GDP axis).
Results and discussion Correlation The results show that GDP is significantly correlated with all the dependent variables at EU27 level (Figure 1). The correlation is negative with MSW-LANDF and positive with the rest. The strongest correlation with GDP is found in MSW-LANDF, followed by MSW-RECYC, MSW-INCIN and MSW-BIOTR. This
does not prove that landfilling of waste is determined by economic development but it nevertheless gives clear evidence of a relationship between these two factors, namely that at lower economic levels landfilling rates are higher and at higher economic levels the landfilling rates are lower. Regarding MSW-LANDF, its correlation with GDP for the EU27 is significant and negative (-0.79) at a confidence level of 95%. Moreover, the majority of countries have correlation
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Figure 2. Line plot of MSW-LANDF versus GDP of the member states ordered by mean GDP.
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Figure 3. Scatter plot with the selected countries for the regression equation (2) and regression line of equation (2). Based on the regression results, MSW management phases are developed (owing to Luxemburg’s high GDP per capita compared with the rest of EU27, it appears well off to the right in the graphs (see Luxembourg Figure 2, with attention to the GDP axis)).
Table 2. Estimated GDP values for certain MSW-LANDF values. MSW-LANDF [ % ]
GDP [Euro cap–1]
100 80 60 40 20 0
3868 9826 15,728 21,738 27,695 33,650
GDP: gross domestic product; MSW-LANDF: municipal solid waste landfilled.
coefficients of around −0.90, reflecting the great correlation between these variables. Only Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Cyprus are not significantly correlated in addition to Malta, which is positively correlated (0.75). Regarding MSW-INCIN, GDP is again significantly correlated to MSW-INCIN, although the correlation is weaker than with MSW-LANDF (0.68) and of a positive sign. Focusing on the individual countries, only half of the countries with incineration operations are significantly correlated positively, while Luxembourg is significantly correlated negatively (–0.91). Regarding MSW-RECYC, its correlation with GDP for the EU27 is high (0.76). Only Denmark, Finland, Cyprus, Malta, Romania and Slovakia are not significantly correlated positively and there is no country significantly correlated negatively. Regarding MSW-BIOTR, the EU27 is not as strongly correlated with GDP as with the other variables (0.56), but it is still significant at a 95% confidence level. However, the correlation of some individual countries is much higher, up to 0.80 for many of them. Only Portugal and Malta show a significant negative correlation. In general, it can be said that in the majority of countries, with a confidence level of 95%, GDP is strongly negatively correlated with MSW-LANDF and positively correlated with MSW-INCIN, MSW-RECYC and MSW-BIOTR. Only Bulgaria, Romania, Malta and Cyprus seem to systematically not follow the expected correlations. For Malta and Cyprus it can be
explained owing to being independent islands in the Mediterranean Sea and thus having different behaviour than the rest of inland EU. Bulgaria and Romania happen to be the EU countries with the lowest GDP per capita, and therefore are just starting to develop proper MSW management practices. Figure 2 shows the relationship between GDP and MSWLANDF for each MS. As we saw in Figure 1, MSW-LANDF in general follows a negative relationship with GDP, thus the higher the GDP gets in a country, the lower its MSW-LANDF. This is not only obvious for all countries in general, but in some cases even between countries. Because the EU27 member states in Figure 1 are ordered according to their mean GDP, it is noticeable how, in certain cases, the end of the line in one country coincides with the beginning of the line in a more economically developed country. It could be inferred that the countries seem to be on different phases of the same process. This way, the countries with the lowest GDP per capita, such as Romania, Bulgaria and Latvia, would be in the first stages of the development of an advanced MSW management with very high landfilling rates; countries with ‘middle’ GDP per capita, such as Portugal, Spain or Italy, would be in a secondary stage with lower landfilling ratios than the countries in the initial stages; and finally the countries with the highest GDP per capita, such as the Netherlands, Sweden or Austria, would be in a final stage of this developmental process, with landfilling rates near to zero. Of course, the different countries will not follow a straight line one after another, but in general it is easy to see the possible path that a particular country could undergo.
MSW development phases A selection of three countries (Latvia, Spain and Germany) is used to represent the three different developmental phases during the 1995–2011 period in the EU27 countries (Figure 4). The phases range from 100% of landfilled waste with GDP values near 5000 Euros per capita to values near 0% of landfilled waste in countries with GDP values near to 30,000 Euros per capita. In theory, a country should pass the three phases before it can have near to 0% of waste sent to sanitary landfills without pre-treatment. Phase 1: Landfilled waste represents nearly 100% of all the waste generated. In this phase, the objective is to collect the totality of the MSW generated and close all uncontrolled dumps. At the lower economic levels, the main effort is put to close dumpsites and to upgrade the existing infrastructure to sanitary landfills (Wilson et al., 2012). It is characterised by landfilling rates near to 100% of the totality of the waste generated. In capital cities and metropolitan areas it is possible to find small scale inorganic recycling or, in particular cases, incineration or biological treatment processes. As GDP grows, the percentage of waste landfilled is slowly decreased by the implementation of separate collection for inorganic recyclable waste. It can be regarded to range between values near zero and 10,000 Euro per capita, and can reach minimum landfilling rates of 70%, of which there is no evidence of lower landfilling rates at this GDP range.
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Figure 4. MSW development phases. In light grey the other EU27 member states are presented. The ‘non-occurrence’ area represents the section of the graph where has not been found any cases.
Phase 2: Implementation of widespread recycling, incineration and biological treatment. The objective of this phase is to lower the landfilling rate by implementing separate collection schemes and recycling, biological treatments and introducing incineration. In this phase, the majority of the waste that is directed to sanitary landfills, uncontrolled landfills and open dumps is reduced drastically. There is a consistent reduction of the rate of landfilled waste owing to the implementation of widespread inorganic recycling and punctual incineration mainly in large urban areas. In some cases, biological treatment of organic waste can contribute significantly to landfill diversion. This phase includes GDP ranges between 10,000 and 20,000 Euro per capita, and reaches landfilling rates of nearly 50%. However, there is no evidence of lower landfilling rates at this economic level. Phase 3: Minimal landfilling and intensification of incineration and recycling. In this final phase, the objective is to maximise recycling and incineration to reduce the waste landfilled to nearly zero. This phase is characterised by a steep decrease of landfilled waste as a result of the intensification of the incineration process and inorganic recycling. Digestion and composting of biological waste is a widespread practice. This phase can be regarded to start at around 20,000 Euro per capita, where a significantly steep decrease of the landfilled waste ratio takes place. The decreasing speed of the landfilled waste ratio can decelerate as values approach zero. All member states with landfill ratios lower than 50% have a per capita GDP of at least 20,000 Euro. Nevertheless, it could be argued that some countries with high GDP, such as Finland, United Kingdom or Ireland, do not follow the trend described in Figure 4. The EU27 countries, with high economic development and high landfilling ratios, have the resources to implement state-of-the-art waste management infrastructure, although for some reason decided not to do so. Developing countries on the other hand, have to continue developing and include MSW management into their developing priorities and therefore their paths do not have to be the same. It was estimated by Burnley (2001) that for the United Kingdom to meet the objectives of the 1999 Landfill Directive, it would need
between 35 and 170 new waste-to-energy incinerators depending on the definition of MSW used. It is obvious that an investment of that magnitude could only be achieved (if possible) by a developed country such as the United Kingdom. It is likely that the countries with the most advanced MSW management systems at the present did not follow the path that we are presenting either, as they developed their waste management system according to their own needs and were not driven by external regulations. One of the most ambitious and important waste policies in the EU is the Landfill Directive (European Commission, 1999), which bans the direct landfilling of biodegradable and high calorific waste, following the packaging waste directive, which promotes recycling and diverts a certain amount of recyclable waste fractions into the recycling industry. Different market-based instruments (landfill tax, other taxes, charge for collection of MSW) and administrative instruments (deposit refund schemes, landfill ban, packaging collection system, separate collection of other municipal waste) (EEA, 2007) in different countries were implemented at a certain GDP level. However, the fact is, regardless of the drivers implemented, there is a strong correlation between the landfilled waste and GDP presented through different waste management phases. Evidence from previous studies suggest that if landfill taxes are relatively high, they can be effective in diverting waste from landfill (Bartelings et al., 2005). This again implies the fact that GDP is important in landfill diversion, since the high landfill taxes are only feasible in countries with a high GDP. At the end of the waste management chain, the citizens are the ones who pay for the waste management service. In countries with low GDP, where the incomes are very low, it is very hard to sustain with the high prices of waste management services (Vujić et al., 2015). Hence, the MSW developmental phases are a valid model for developing countries, which are still in phase 1 or in stages pre-phase 1 and that wish to comply with EU regulations, such as EU candidates, or just want to reach high MSW management standards.
Implications According to the MSW Management Developmental phases, time and economic development is needed for developing countries to match current MSW management practices carried out in the most advanced EU member states. Following the IMF (2014), the perspective of growth for the developing economies for 2014 and 2015 is 5.1% and 5.4%, respectively; in particular, 2.8% and 3.1% for Central and Eastern Europe, which is where most of the EU candidates are located. These candidate countries will have to comply with the stringent EU landfill diversion regulations in the near future to continue the accession process. Thus, it is likely that this economic growth is not enough for these countries to reach the EU waste targets in the near future. Taseli (2007) uses the case of Turkey, an EU candidate country, to exemplify the difficulty of developing countries to quickly upgrade their MSW management systems to EU standards. His perspectives follow the described MSW developmental phases as it advocates for a
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Vujić et al. succession of incremental steps towards the implementation of the Landfill Directive, in line with economic and institutional development in the country. Although minimisation and waste prevention at source are at the top of the EU waste hierarchy, policy efforts so far have been biased towards disposal and recycling (Mazzanti and Zoboli, 2009) suiting the economic and social context of advanced EU members. This context is characterised by high GDP per capita, scarce land resources for waste disposal, high per capita waste generation rates and high demand for recovered materials. This is pretty much the opposite context for developing countries in which GDP per capita is low (or at least much lower than the most advanced EU members), there is not a market for recycled materials and thus no demand for them, and lower per capita generation rates. Therefore, developing countries should not blindly duplicate the measures taken in the EU, but take the useful components from them and apply them to their local realities (Chen et al., 2010). Developing societies are known to have a smaller recyclable waste fraction than developed countries, mainly owing to their lower purchasing power. In addition, the informal sector removes part of the recyclable materials from the mixed waste before the municipal collection takes place (Shimura et al., 2001; Wilson et al., 2012). This hinders the implementation of recycling infrastructure, as this infrastructure needs a constant supply of recyclable materials to remain profitable. These technologies are solutions for a problem that is not a priority in developing countries. The priority of developing countries is to protect the human health and the environment from improperly managed waste, therefore their effort and investments should be set on increasing the collection of waste and upgrading their existing infrastructure of waste disposal before they focus on resource conservation and energy efficiency, priorities which have gained in importance in richer countries (Brunner and Fellner, 2007; Wilson et al., 2012). MSW developmental phases allowed us to see the difficulties for developing countries to implement state-of-the-art landfill diversion infrastructure. However, developing countries do not have to duplicate the measures from advanced EU members since they are made to suit their particular context. Hence it is important that every society to first evaluate its economic boundary condition (which in our case can be recognised as GDP) (Fellner and Brunner, 2007) and then decide what instruments can give the most beneficial results taking into consideration their economic boundary conditions.
GDP had, in general, much higher landfilling rates than countries with a higher GDP. Three different phases were defined corresponding to their economic development: An initial phase where nearly 100% of the waste is landfilled, characterised by GDP values lower than 10,000 Euro per capita and year; an intermediate phase in which the majority of the waste is still landfilled, however, recycling and incineration are significantly increasing, ranging between 10,000 and 20,000 Euro per capita year; and a final phase in which the majority of the waste is incinerated or recycled with landfilling rates near zero in some cases, and a GDP per capita higher than 20,000 Euro per year. Developing countries need to reach particular economic development levels before implementing advanced waste management strategies. Significant financial and time resources are needed for them to reach waste management standards of the most advanced EU member states. In addition, their socioeconomic context has to be similar to the context in these developed countries for state-of-the-art waste management technology to be useful and effective. Developing countries have different priorities than advanced EU countries regarding waste management. Focus should be put on protecting human health and the environment before resource and energy efficiency. Since the purpose of this research is an attempt to document and outline the correlation between GDP and waste management development level, for predictions a simple linear regression model is used. It is possible that other types of regressions are more accurate and, in general, describe the relationship between variables more accurately; and in order to support the findings of this article could be applied in future research for specific cases. For example, nonlinear models can be used to predict more accurately the possible future development of MSW management systems. Although links between GDP and other waste treatments are mentioned in the article, future research could focus on in-depth analysis of GDP influence on the introduction of different available waste treatment technologies as well. Further influence of different driver influences and boundary conditions that occurred in different waste management development phases should be investigated.
Acknowledgements The authors are grateful to James W Levis, Research Assistant Professor, at North Carolina State University, for improving the English fluency.
Declaration of conflicting interests
Conclusions Results showed a great correlation between waste management and economic development. The correlation was positive for incineration, recycling and biological treatments, and negative for waste landfilling. Only Romania, Bulgaria, Malta and Cyprus were found to systematically not follow this. A close individual country analysis of the relationship between landfill and GDP revealed a general trend followed by the majority of the member states. As shown by the correlation analysis, countries with a low
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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Okumura S, Tasaki T and Moriguchi Y (2014) Economic growth and trends of municipal waste treatment options in Asian countries. Journal of Material Cycles ad Waste Management 16: 335–346. Ragossnig MA and Vujić G (2015) Challenges in technology transfer from developed to developing countries. Waste Management & Research 33: 93–95. Shimura S, Yokota I and Nitta Y (2001) Research for MSW flow analysis in developing nations. Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management 3: 48–59. Sommer M and Ragossnig A (2011) Energy from waste in Europe: An analysis and comparison of the EU 27. Waste Management & Research 29: 69–77. Stanisavljevic N, Ubavin D, Batinic B, et al. (2012) Methane emissions from landfills in Serbia and potential mitigation strategies: A case study. Waste Management & Research 30: 1095–1103. Taseli BK (2007) The impact of the European Landfill Directive on waste management strategy and current legislation in Turkey’s Specially Protected Areas. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 52: 119–135. Velis CA, Wilson DC, Rocca O, et al. (2012) An analytical framework and tool (‘InteRa’) for integrating the informal recycling sector in waste and resource management systems in developing countries Waste Management & Research 30: 43. Vujić G, Batinić B, Stanisavljević N, et al. (2010) From landfill to 3R, pathway in developed as well in developing country. In: Proceedings of From sanitary to sustainable landfilling: Why, how and when? – first international conference on final sinks, 23–25 September 2010, Vienna, Austria. Vujic G, Stanisavljevic N, Batinic B, et al. (2015) Barriers for implementation of “waste to energy” in developing and transition countries - A case study of Serbia. Journal of Material Cycles ad Waste Management. Epub ahead of print 10 April. DOI: 10.1007/s10163-015-0377-8. Wilson DC, Rodić Lj, Scheinberg A, et al. (2012) Comparative analysis of solid waste management in 20 cities. Waste Management & Research 30: 237–254. Yousif DF and Scott S (2007) Governing solid waste management in Mazatenango, Guatemala. International Development Planning Review 29: 433–450.
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search-article2015
WMR0010.1177/0734242X15611738Waste Management & ResearchVujić et al.
Original Article
Municipal solid waste development phases: Evidence from EU27
Waste Management & Research 2015, Vol. 33(12) 1112–1120 © The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0734242X15611738 wmr.sagepub.com
Goran Vujić1, Alvaro Gonzalez-Roof2, Nemanja Stanisavljević1 and Arne M Ragossnig3
Abstract Many countries in the European Union (EU) have very developed waste management systems. Some of its members have managed to reduce their landfilled waste to values close to zero during the last decade. Thus, European Union legislation is very stringent regarding waste management for their members and candidate countries, too. This raises the following questions: Is it possible for developing and developed countries to comply with the European Union waste legislation, and under what conditions? How did waste management develop in relation to the economic development in the countries of the European Union? The correlation between waste management practices and economic development was analysed for 27 of the European Union Member States for the time period between 1995 and 2007. In addition, a regression analysis was performed to estimate landfilling of waste in relation to gross domestic product for every country. The results showed a strong correlation between the waste management variables and the gross domestic product of the EU27 members. The definition of the municipal solid waste management development phases followed a closer analysis of the relation between gross domestic product and landfilled waste. The municipal solid waste management phases are characterised by high landfilling rates at low gross domestic product levels, and landfilling rates near zero at high gross domestic product levels. Hence the results emphasize the importance of wider understanding of what is required for developing countries to comply with the European Union initiatives, and highlight the importance of allowing developing countries to make their own paths of waste management development. Keywords Waste management development phases, landfill diversion, gross domestic product, economic development, developing and transition countries, European Union requirements
Introduction Waste management in developing countries faces the influence of upcoming legislation, recommendations from experts from all over the world and different interest groups. Drivers that are widely recognised in the scientific and stakeholder communities (Agamuthu et al., 2009; Marshall and Farahbakhsh, 2013) are not often incorporated as predominant factors in the practice for development of solid waste management (SWM) systems. Hence, many developing countries install waste treatment capacities that often do not comply with the local conditions. For nonEuropean Union members this is mainly driven by the fact that they want to develop waste management following the intentions and regulations of the European Union (EU) as the part of the world with one of the most advanced waste management systems. Additionally, it is often the case that some foreign consultants, in order to easily overcome problems, recommend technologies that do not reflect the actual needs and the development stage of waste management in the developing countries (Coffey and Coad, 2010; Yousif and Scott, 2007). Reducing, reusing and recycling, the 3R policy, as a guideline for improving the protection of human health, and environment, is easily acceptable for politicians and is well received by the
public. However, the limitations of introducing these principles lies in the fact that the majority of developing countries do not have the capacity to embed them, and thus first must be able to cope with the challenges associated with integrating the informal sector (Ezeah et al., 2013; Velis et al., 2012) and illegal and uncontrolled landfilling, as predominant sink for generated waste in these countries (Fauziah and Agamuthu, 2009; Stanisavljevic et al., 2012). In a medium time horizon it is very important to identify affordable solutions, which can be implemented quickly and give to citizen’s affordable improvement of waste management in their societies, which in most cases means replacing the
1Faculty
of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia 2Ecole des mines d’Alès, Alès, France 3UTC UmweltTechnik und GeoConsulting ZT GmbH, Vienna, Austria Corresponding author: Nemanja Stanisavljevic, Faculty of Technical Sciences, Department of Environmental Engineering, University of Novi Sad, Trg Dositeja Obradovića 6, Novi Sad, Serbia. Email: [email protected]
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Vujić et al. open dumps with controlled sanitary disposal sites (Fellner and Brunner, 2007; Vujić et al., 2010; Wilson et al., 2012). Many factors and drivers influence the implementation of different waste treatment options, for example, demand for specific waste management solutions, political stability, sufficient financial resources and public acceptance (Ragossnig and Vujić, 2015), but the major challenge faced in implementing sustainable waste management solutions in developing countries is the identification of appropriate and affordable concepts. However, there are not many studies that address the connection between waste management development and economic growth of a nation. Okumura et al. (2014) assessed the historical trend of gross domestic product (GDP) growth and waste treatment implementation in Japan, Korea and China. For EU-member countries there is research that has been performed looking on the development of energy from waste (Sommer and Ragossnig, 2011), while Klampfl-Pernold and Gelbmann (2006) aim to identify different phases of waste management practice based on the European situation. On a worldwide level, a recent study of Wilson et al. (2012) defined the factors they found crucial for sustainable waste management systems. The authors made a comparison between gross domestic income (GDI) per capita and human development index (HDI) per capita and waste management practices. In addition, Brunner and Fellner (2007) clearly stated that every further development of waste management systems of societies, must be followed by previous definition of its economic boundaries. Hence, each country or region must first access its economic capacity for waste management and then develop the waste management system accordingly. In the global waste management community, the linkage between the level of economic development (GDP level) and a country’s potential to reduce its landfilled waste represents an issue, which is often discussed and emphasized (European Commission, 1999). It seems safe to argue that the higher the economic development of a country, the more resources it has to treat the waste using alternatives to direct landfilling and thus the landfilling waste ratio is reduced. On the other hand, if a country has a lower economic development, it has fewer resources to allocate into alternative energy and material recovery infrastructure. There is evidence of waste generation and disposal delinking with economic development in the EU25 (Mazzanti and Zoboli, 2008, 2009). However, there is only evidence of absolute delinking for landfilled waste. The drivers of the absolute delinking of landfilled waste and GDP seem to be the EU waste policy and directives, in addition to increasing land-use related costs for waste disposal, therefore, the importance is the time period between now and the time when these policies and directives were implemented (late 1990s, early 2000s). In addition, the same authors suggest that the period from 1995 to 2005 might be already in the ‘right’ descending side of the inverted U-shape of the Waste Kuznets Curve. This article tries to outline and document the impact level of economic development expressed as GDP on the waste management status quo in the EU27 (European Union 27 member
States). Hence, the aim of this research is twofold: (i) to highlight the great differences in waste management between the EU member states and explaining part of these differences by the level of economic development (expressed as GDP); (ii) to define waste management development phases in the EU member states based on past experiences of municipal solid waste (MSW) development rather than good intentions. The objective of presenting the MSW management developmental phases is non other than to describe the possible future MSW management development of developing countries by studying how EU member states developed their MSW management systems. Thus, the focus of this research is describing the ‘shortest’ or most efficient possible way to reach higher diversion of waste from landfills in an undeveloped MSW management system following the proposed EU waste hierarchy.
Methodology and data Data The data used in this article is extracted from the EUROSTAT database covering a period of 12 years, from 1995 to 2007, for the EU27 member states. The time period between 1995 and 2007 is very important for the advances in waste management in Europe, in particular regarding the landfilling of waste, as some of the member states defined specific targets for landfilling to be met by 2005 (landfill ordinances in Austria and Germany). So in this time period the waste management sector of these countries developed based on clear political targets and regulatory frameworks. By the end of this period, some of the more advanced EU member states achieved a landfilling rate close to 0%. Additionally, during this period, countries with a low level of waste management development joined the EU. Hence the insights about their accommodation within the EU waste management policy requirements as well as the GDP growth can be assessed. The EU27 member states are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom.
Variable definition The MSW management variables in this study are MSW Landfilled (MSW-LANDF), MSW Incinerated (MSW-INCIN), MSW Recycled (MSW-RECYC) and MSW Biologically Treated (MSW-BIOTR) (Table 1). The economic development of the member states will be assessed using their GDP. For the analysis we assume that MSW management is dependent on economic development (Brunner and Fellner, 2007; Okumura et al., 2014; Wilson et al., 2012), therefore GDP is used as the independent variable and the waste indicators as dependent variables. To account for differences in waste generation between the member states and to make comparisons easier, the dependent variables are transformed and expressed as a percentage of the total waste
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Table 1. Variable description. Variable name
Variable code
Description
Units
Gross domestic product
GDP
Euros per capita/year
MSW landfilled MSW incinerated
MSW-LANDF MSW- INCIN
MSW recycled MSW biologically treated
MSW-RECYC MSW-BIOTR
Gross domestic product at current prices, 2013 Landfilled MSW in the system MSW incinerated with or without energy recovery in the system MSW recycled in the system MSW composted and digested in the system
Percentage of total treatment Percentage of total treatment Percentage of total treatment Percentage of total treatment
MSW: municipal solid waste.
treated, that is the sum of MSW-LANDF, MSW-INCIN, MSWRECYC and MSW-BIOTR (Figures 1 and 2). The variables in general do not follow a normal distribution. This is very important as it will not be possible to use parametric approaches to analyse available data.
variables, therefore, the effect of all the dependent variables are included in the estimation by using the MSW-LANDF as a percentage of the total waste treated.
Tests and statistical methods
A regression equation was developed to explore the ‘shortest’ possible path for developing a country’s waste management to reach landfilling rates of near 0% considering the level of economic development. Instead of using all member states in the EU27, it was decided to limit the countries to the ones that best represented the MSW management development previously described. Therefore, countries like Bulgaria or Denmark are not useful, as the former has not yet started this process, while the latter reached the end of the final stage before 2007 and can disturb the equation, which aims to describe the process of landfill diversion. In addition, countries like the United Kingdom or Ireland were also excluded from the regression, as these countries have much higher landfilling ratios than it is expected from their GDP. It is clear that UK and Ireland would follow a different regression line than most of the other countries. This is simply because at the time of mandatory reductions of landfilled waste and increased recycling, these countries already had a higher GDP than most of the other EU member of future member states. Moreover, it can be seen from (Figure 2) how these countries follow the same process as the other countries; just that they start much ‘later’, that is at higher GDP values (around 30,000 Euros). If they were included, the equation would not represent the most realistic pathway to reach lower landfilling rates, as is the intention of the article. Therefore, the countries chosen for this purpose are Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Estonia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Netherlands and Sweden. From the regression equation, it is possible to estimate when it would be reasonable to expect a developing country to reach a certain landfill ratio (Figure 3). This way, countries should not be expected to reach landfilling ratios below 40% until their GDP reaches a value near 22,000 Euro per capita. In addition, landfilling ratios near 0% are only expected to be reached at GDP levels of over 30,000 Euros (Table 2):
The variables were statistically analysed to assess the relationship between waste management and economic development. The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (r) is a measure of the linear correlation between two variables (X and Y), giving a value between +1 and −1. The sign +/– indicates the direction of the relationship (positive or negative) and the magnitude indicates the strength of the relationship, ranging from 0 for no relationship, to 1 for total correlation. Pearson’s correlation coefficient between two variables is defined as the covariance of the two variables divided by the product of their standard deviations. The correlations between variables are used to assess the strength of the relationship between waste management and economic development. Simple linear regression is the ordinary least squares (OLS) estimator of a linear regression model with a single explanatory variable. The slope of the fitted line is equal to the correlation between Y and X corrected by the ratio of standard deviations of these variables. The intercept of the fitted line is such that it passes through the centre of mass of the data points. The OSL regression fits models of the form:
Yi = β 0 + β1 X 1i + ⋅⋅⋅ + β k X k i ; i = 1 n (1)
where Yi is the predicted value of the dependent variable for observation i; Xji is the jth predictor value for the ith observation; β0 is the intercept, βj is the regression coefficient for the jth predictor; and n is the number of observations and k is the number of predictor variables. Regression is used to predict a response variable from one predictor variable. Because the variables are expressed as a percentage of the total waste treated, the regression analysis is carried out with the independent variable GDP and the dependent variable MSW-LANDF. The difference between MSW-LANDF and the total waste treated is the sum of the other dependent
Regression
MSW − LANDF = 112.99 − 0.003358 ⋅ GDP (2)
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Figure 1. Pearson product moment correlation coefficients and scatter plots. In green, the regression line for the relationship is presented (Luxemburg, owing to high GDP per capita compared with the rest of EU27, it appears well off to the right in the graphs (see Figure 2, pay attention to the GDP axis).
Results and discussion Correlation The results show that GDP is significantly correlated with all the dependent variables at EU27 level (Figure 1). The correlation is negative with MSW-LANDF and positive with the rest. The strongest correlation with GDP is found in MSW-LANDF, followed by MSW-RECYC, MSW-INCIN and MSW-BIOTR. This
does not prove that landfilling of waste is determined by economic development but it nevertheless gives clear evidence of a relationship between these two factors, namely that at lower economic levels landfilling rates are higher and at higher economic levels the landfilling rates are lower. Regarding MSW-LANDF, its correlation with GDP for the EU27 is significant and negative (-0.79) at a confidence level of 95%. Moreover, the majority of countries have correlation
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Figure 2. Line plot of MSW-LANDF versus GDP of the member states ordered by mean GDP.
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Figure 3. Scatter plot with the selected countries for the regression equation (2) and regression line of equation (2). Based on the regression results, MSW management phases are developed (owing to Luxemburg’s high GDP per capita compared with the rest of EU27, it appears well off to the right in the graphs (see Luxembourg Figure 2, with attention to the GDP axis)).
Table 2. Estimated GDP values for certain MSW-LANDF values. MSW-LANDF [ % ]
GDP [Euro cap–1]
100 80 60 40 20 0
3868 9826 15,728 21,738 27,695 33,650
GDP: gross domestic product; MSW-LANDF: municipal solid waste landfilled.
coefficients of around −0.90, reflecting the great correlation between these variables. Only Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Cyprus are not significantly correlated in addition to Malta, which is positively correlated (0.75). Regarding MSW-INCIN, GDP is again significantly correlated to MSW-INCIN, although the correlation is weaker than with MSW-LANDF (0.68) and of a positive sign. Focusing on the individual countries, only half of the countries with incineration operations are significantly correlated positively, while Luxembourg is significantly correlated negatively (–0.91). Regarding MSW-RECYC, its correlation with GDP for the EU27 is high (0.76). Only Denmark, Finland, Cyprus, Malta, Romania and Slovakia are not significantly correlated positively and there is no country significantly correlated negatively. Regarding MSW-BIOTR, the EU27 is not as strongly correlated with GDP as with the other variables (0.56), but it is still significant at a 95% confidence level. However, the correlation of some individual countries is much higher, up to 0.80 for many of them. Only Portugal and Malta show a significant negative correlation. In general, it can be said that in the majority of countries, with a confidence level of 95%, GDP is strongly negatively correlated with MSW-LANDF and positively correlated with MSW-INCIN, MSW-RECYC and MSW-BIOTR. Only Bulgaria, Romania, Malta and Cyprus seem to systematically not follow the expected correlations. For Malta and Cyprus it can be
explained owing to being independent islands in the Mediterranean Sea and thus having different behaviour than the rest of inland EU. Bulgaria and Romania happen to be the EU countries with the lowest GDP per capita, and therefore are just starting to develop proper MSW management practices. Figure 2 shows the relationship between GDP and MSWLANDF for each MS. As we saw in Figure 1, MSW-LANDF in general follows a negative relationship with GDP, thus the higher the GDP gets in a country, the lower its MSW-LANDF. This is not only obvious for all countries in general, but in some cases even between countries. Because the EU27 member states in Figure 1 are ordered according to their mean GDP, it is noticeable how, in certain cases, the end of the line in one country coincides with the beginning of the line in a more economically developed country. It could be inferred that the countries seem to be on different phases of the same process. This way, the countries with the lowest GDP per capita, such as Romania, Bulgaria and Latvia, would be in the first stages of the development of an advanced MSW management with very high landfilling rates; countries with ‘middle’ GDP per capita, such as Portugal, Spain or Italy, would be in a secondary stage with lower landfilling ratios than the countries in the initial stages; and finally the countries with the highest GDP per capita, such as the Netherlands, Sweden or Austria, would be in a final stage of this developmental process, with landfilling rates near to zero. Of course, the different countries will not follow a straight line one after another, but in general it is easy to see the possible path that a particular country could undergo.
MSW development phases A selection of three countries (Latvia, Spain and Germany) is used to represent the three different developmental phases during the 1995–2011 period in the EU27 countries (Figure 4). The phases range from 100% of landfilled waste with GDP values near 5000 Euros per capita to values near 0% of landfilled waste in countries with GDP values near to 30,000 Euros per capita. In theory, a country should pass the three phases before it can have near to 0% of waste sent to sanitary landfills without pre-treatment. Phase 1: Landfilled waste represents nearly 100% of all the waste generated. In this phase, the objective is to collect the totality of the MSW generated and close all uncontrolled dumps. At the lower economic levels, the main effort is put to close dumpsites and to upgrade the existing infrastructure to sanitary landfills (Wilson et al., 2012). It is characterised by landfilling rates near to 100% of the totality of the waste generated. In capital cities and metropolitan areas it is possible to find small scale inorganic recycling or, in particular cases, incineration or biological treatment processes. As GDP grows, the percentage of waste landfilled is slowly decreased by the implementation of separate collection for inorganic recyclable waste. It can be regarded to range between values near zero and 10,000 Euro per capita, and can reach minimum landfilling rates of 70%, of which there is no evidence of lower landfilling rates at this GDP range.
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Figure 4. MSW development phases. In light grey the other EU27 member states are presented. The ‘non-occurrence’ area represents the section of the graph where has not been found any cases.
Phase 2: Implementation of widespread recycling, incineration and biological treatment. The objective of this phase is to lower the landfilling rate by implementing separate collection schemes and recycling, biological treatments and introducing incineration. In this phase, the majority of the waste that is directed to sanitary landfills, uncontrolled landfills and open dumps is reduced drastically. There is a consistent reduction of the rate of landfilled waste owing to the implementation of widespread inorganic recycling and punctual incineration mainly in large urban areas. In some cases, biological treatment of organic waste can contribute significantly to landfill diversion. This phase includes GDP ranges between 10,000 and 20,000 Euro per capita, and reaches landfilling rates of nearly 50%. However, there is no evidence of lower landfilling rates at this economic level. Phase 3: Minimal landfilling and intensification of incineration and recycling. In this final phase, the objective is to maximise recycling and incineration to reduce the waste landfilled to nearly zero. This phase is characterised by a steep decrease of landfilled waste as a result of the intensification of the incineration process and inorganic recycling. Digestion and composting of biological waste is a widespread practice. This phase can be regarded to start at around 20,000 Euro per capita, where a significantly steep decrease of the landfilled waste ratio takes place. The decreasing speed of the landfilled waste ratio can decelerate as values approach zero. All member states with landfill ratios lower than 50% have a per capita GDP of at least 20,000 Euro. Nevertheless, it could be argued that some countries with high GDP, such as Finland, United Kingdom or Ireland, do not follow the trend described in Figure 4. The EU27 countries, with high economic development and high landfilling ratios, have the resources to implement state-of-the-art waste management infrastructure, although for some reason decided not to do so. Developing countries on the other hand, have to continue developing and include MSW management into their developing priorities and therefore their paths do not have to be the same. It was estimated by Burnley (2001) that for the United Kingdom to meet the objectives of the 1999 Landfill Directive, it would need
between 35 and 170 new waste-to-energy incinerators depending on the definition of MSW used. It is obvious that an investment of that magnitude could only be achieved (if possible) by a developed country such as the United Kingdom. It is likely that the countries with the most advanced MSW management systems at the present did not follow the path that we are presenting either, as they developed their waste management system according to their own needs and were not driven by external regulations. One of the most ambitious and important waste policies in the EU is the Landfill Directive (European Commission, 1999), which bans the direct landfilling of biodegradable and high calorific waste, following the packaging waste directive, which promotes recycling and diverts a certain amount of recyclable waste fractions into the recycling industry. Different market-based instruments (landfill tax, other taxes, charge for collection of MSW) and administrative instruments (deposit refund schemes, landfill ban, packaging collection system, separate collection of other municipal waste) (EEA, 2007) in different countries were implemented at a certain GDP level. However, the fact is, regardless of the drivers implemented, there is a strong correlation between the landfilled waste and GDP presented through different waste management phases. Evidence from previous studies suggest that if landfill taxes are relatively high, they can be effective in diverting waste from landfill (Bartelings et al., 2005). This again implies the fact that GDP is important in landfill diversion, since the high landfill taxes are only feasible in countries with a high GDP. At the end of the waste management chain, the citizens are the ones who pay for the waste management service. In countries with low GDP, where the incomes are very low, it is very hard to sustain with the high prices of waste management services (Vujić et al., 2015). Hence, the MSW developmental phases are a valid model for developing countries, which are still in phase 1 or in stages pre-phase 1 and that wish to comply with EU regulations, such as EU candidates, or just want to reach high MSW management standards.
Implications According to the MSW Management Developmental phases, time and economic development is needed for developing countries to match current MSW management practices carried out in the most advanced EU member states. Following the IMF (2014), the perspective of growth for the developing economies for 2014 and 2015 is 5.1% and 5.4%, respectively; in particular, 2.8% and 3.1% for Central and Eastern Europe, which is where most of the EU candidates are located. These candidate countries will have to comply with the stringent EU landfill diversion regulations in the near future to continue the accession process. Thus, it is likely that this economic growth is not enough for these countries to reach the EU waste targets in the near future. Taseli (2007) uses the case of Turkey, an EU candidate country, to exemplify the difficulty of developing countries to quickly upgrade their MSW management systems to EU standards. His perspectives follow the described MSW developmental phases as it advocates for a
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Vujić et al. succession of incremental steps towards the implementation of the Landfill Directive, in line with economic and institutional development in the country. Although minimisation and waste prevention at source are at the top of the EU waste hierarchy, policy efforts so far have been biased towards disposal and recycling (Mazzanti and Zoboli, 2009) suiting the economic and social context of advanced EU members. This context is characterised by high GDP per capita, scarce land resources for waste disposal, high per capita waste generation rates and high demand for recovered materials. This is pretty much the opposite context for developing countries in which GDP per capita is low (or at least much lower than the most advanced EU members), there is not a market for recycled materials and thus no demand for them, and lower per capita generation rates. Therefore, developing countries should not blindly duplicate the measures taken in the EU, but take the useful components from them and apply them to their local realities (Chen et al., 2010). Developing societies are known to have a smaller recyclable waste fraction than developed countries, mainly owing to their lower purchasing power. In addition, the informal sector removes part of the recyclable materials from the mixed waste before the municipal collection takes place (Shimura et al., 2001; Wilson et al., 2012). This hinders the implementation of recycling infrastructure, as this infrastructure needs a constant supply of recyclable materials to remain profitable. These technologies are solutions for a problem that is not a priority in developing countries. The priority of developing countries is to protect the human health and the environment from improperly managed waste, therefore their effort and investments should be set on increasing the collection of waste and upgrading their existing infrastructure of waste disposal before they focus on resource conservation and energy efficiency, priorities which have gained in importance in richer countries (Brunner and Fellner, 2007; Wilson et al., 2012). MSW developmental phases allowed us to see the difficulties for developing countries to implement state-of-the-art landfill diversion infrastructure. However, developing countries do not have to duplicate the measures from advanced EU members since they are made to suit their particular context. Hence it is important that every society to first evaluate its economic boundary condition (which in our case can be recognised as GDP) (Fellner and Brunner, 2007) and then decide what instruments can give the most beneficial results taking into consideration their economic boundary conditions.
GDP had, in general, much higher landfilling rates than countries with a higher GDP. Three different phases were defined corresponding to their economic development: An initial phase where nearly 100% of the waste is landfilled, characterised by GDP values lower than 10,000 Euro per capita and year; an intermediate phase in which the majority of the waste is still landfilled, however, recycling and incineration are significantly increasing, ranging between 10,000 and 20,000 Euro per capita year; and a final phase in which the majority of the waste is incinerated or recycled with landfilling rates near zero in some cases, and a GDP per capita higher than 20,000 Euro per year. Developing countries need to reach particular economic development levels before implementing advanced waste management strategies. Significant financial and time resources are needed for them to reach waste management standards of the most advanced EU member states. In addition, their socioeconomic context has to be similar to the context in these developed countries for state-of-the-art waste management technology to be useful and effective. Developing countries have different priorities than advanced EU countries regarding waste management. Focus should be put on protecting human health and the environment before resource and energy efficiency. Since the purpose of this research is an attempt to document and outline the correlation between GDP and waste management development level, for predictions a simple linear regression model is used. It is possible that other types of regressions are more accurate and, in general, describe the relationship between variables more accurately; and in order to support the findings of this article could be applied in future research for specific cases. For example, nonlinear models can be used to predict more accurately the possible future development of MSW management systems. Although links between GDP and other waste treatments are mentioned in the article, future research could focus on in-depth analysis of GDP influence on the introduction of different available waste treatment technologies as well. Further influence of different driver influences and boundary conditions that occurred in different waste management development phases should be investigated.
Acknowledgements The authors are grateful to James W Levis, Research Assistant Professor, at North Carolina State University, for improving the English fluency.
Declaration of conflicting interests
Conclusions Results showed a great correlation between waste management and economic development. The correlation was positive for incineration, recycling and biological treatments, and negative for waste landfilling. Only Romania, Bulgaria, Malta and Cyprus were found to systematically not follow this. A close individual country analysis of the relationship between landfill and GDP revealed a general trend followed by the majority of the member states. As shown by the correlation analysis, countries with a low
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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