The Economics of Waste
In this concise, engaging, and at times provocative work, Richard Porter introduces readers to the economic tools that can be applied to problems involved in handling a diverse range of waste products from business and households. Emphasizing the imp
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[wprebay kw=”waste+recycling” num=”40″ ebcat=”all”] [wprebay kw=”waste+recycling” num=”41″ ebcat=”all”]
Review by Dr. Ian H. Lavering for The Economics of Waste
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The Economics of Waste by Richard C Porter, Resources for the Future, Washington DC, ISBN 1-891853-43-0, paperback, 301 p.
At last! A book with a very trashy subject! Trash; rubbish, garbage or refuse, its anything we want to call it and its anything we place little or no value on. Seriously, though, in our current consumer dominated society its very pleasing to be able to find a book which is devoted to one of the most ubiquitous features of our urban landscape – trash and waste materials. With so much `waste’ and `trash’ being generated, its refreshing to see an author such as Richard Porter looking into the rational and reasonable reasons why we generate some much of this stuff. However, Richard does admit, at the very beginning, he is looking at the economics of waste but hasn’t had the time and opportunity to go into the cultural, social, political and technical aspects of waste. To those of us who must confess a devotion to the dismal science (economics), and a Homer Simpson-style fixation on land fill sites, its comes with the promise of having something of both these nirvanas.
But the subject is a serious one and it reflects the universality of both economics and `waste’; the first revelation by Porter is the obvious, namely that waste generation is income inelastic. The higher the income, the greater the amount of waste generated. But, there is good news – the relative volume of waste per unit of economic output is decreasing as more services are produced rather than just goods (and bads – waste).
Waste is any materials we do not want. It’s the stuff which we place little, if any, value upon. At least, a value less than the worth of collecting and offering the materials back to market for sale. A key result in the latter part of Chapter 1 is that waste is often generated because of external costs or hidden subsidies. That is, goods and services are not being priced at levels which reflect the true cost of production. In many instances society at large bears the cost of collecting, sorting and disposing of waste. But in recent times regulation and taxes have been used to charge for this service, thus effectively reducing incentives for waste generation, but increasing them for littering.
The free availability of landfills provided an unusual but not a timeless subsidy to waste. The introduction of taxes and charges for landfill use has put a price on the value of waste. But it also provides a cost for the disposal of bulky but less recyclable materials which tend to be abandoned as litter. The scale of recycling and bulk sorting technology, much derived from that developed in the mining industry, has made materials recycling a viable enterprise. Interestingly, such technology has also served to increase the rate of recycling of materials, particularly metals and bulk materials, thus keeping the price of metals at modest or even decreasing levels when little major new deposits are being discovered by additional mineral exploration around the globe.
The economics of recycling provides a positive and useful insight into how markets can be developed and implemented to price waste from waste to commodity status. Cardboard, aluminium, glass and newsprint are all examples of commodity markets which are formed and have matured as technology and materials flows have altered from a low to a high recycling regime.
The book moves onto the issues of hazardous waste and brings the issues of chemical and nuclear waste and the economics of these issues. As such, it is an admirable effort and almost qualifies as a pioneer in a field which has been open and poorly served for so long. It’s a pity that Richard Porter has had to wait until his well earned retirement before this work was published. If only he had been able to do it with a lot more of his career left to benefit from his pioneering efforts. A welcome addition to knowledge and worthy of having in anyone’s library if your are ever seeking to explain how markets and trash affect each other. Its all about trash but a book worth more than its weight in knowledge and clarity.
Dr I. Lavering
Adjunct Professor
MBT Program
UNSW