About the Importance of Planning the Location of Recycling Stations in the Urban Context

Abstract

Recycling is essential to the circular economy and reduces the environmental impact of our consumption. Creating conditions for recycling in new residential areas is relatively easy but finding good recycling opportunities in existing residential areas is more complicated. The recycling of newspapers, plastic and glass must be relatively close to where people live; at the same time, the locations must be relatively discreet and not disturb the residents in the area. The purpose of the article is to analyse the effect of small and local recycling stations (RCSs) on the attractiveness of residential areas. This has been made possible by analysing housing values for almost 200,000 housing units near 250 RCSs in Stockholm, Sweden. Using an identification strategy that relies on postal code fixed effects, we find evidence that the proximity to RCS affects housing prices on average in both owner-occupied single-family houses and cooperative owner-occupied apartments (condominiums). The results indicate that proximity to the RCS is negatively capitalised in housing values (the effect amounts to approximately 1.3 percent of the housing values), which indicates that the city should consider this in its planning.