How much are people willing to pay for efficient waste management schemes? A benefit transfer application

Abstract

To socially justify the need for better municipal solid waste management services, especially in the light of the limited availability of public funds, it is important to quantify the monetary value of the potential social and environmental benefits offered by them. This article aims at estimating society’s willingness to pay improved municipal solid waste management and establishing suitable reference values using the ‘benefit transfer’ method. To this direction, relevant studies from the global scientific and grey literature in the field of municipal solid waste management valuation are analysed and two different transfer approaches are implemented. According to the analysis, the mean annual willingness to pay per household is 88.4 USD₂₀₁₄ (5%-trimmed mean: 78.7 USD₂₀₁₄; 95% confidence interval lower bound: 64.8 USD₂₀₁₄ and upper bound: 112.0 USD₂₀₁₄). The analysis yields estimates with a high standard deviation and notably broad confidence intervals, owing to design issues of the primary studies, the different socioeconomic profiles of the populations surveyed and the existing level of municipal solid waste management services. Thus, a meta-regression model is estimated to explore the sources of heterogeneity and facilitate more accurate transfer values. Nevertheless, the limited number of observations and some methodological issues in the design and conduct of the original surveys set certain challenges and increase the level of uncertainty of the transfer values.