The decoupling of affluence and waste discharge under spatial correlation: Do richer communities discharge more waste?

Abstract

Although there are many studies on the environmental Kuznets curve, very few of them address municipal solid waste cases, and there is still controversy concerning the validity of the waste Kuznets curve hypothesis. In this paper, we provide empirical evidence for the waste Kuznets curve hypothesis by applying spatial econometrics methods to municipal-level data in Japan. To our knowledge, this is the first study that finds valid evidence for the waste Kuznets curve hypothesis in the absolute decoupling manner. The successful result owes in part to our highly disaggregated data and also to the use of a spatial econometric model that takes into account the mimicking behavior among neighboring municipalities. The former indicates that distinguishing between household and business waste is the key to revealing the waste-income relationship, while the latter implies the importance of peer effects when municipal governments formulate waste-reduction policies.

The Decoupling of Resource Consumption and Environmental Impact from Economic Growth in China: Spatial Pattern and Temporal Trend

“…[4,6,10,[25][26][27]. Two main kinds of decoupling are taken into account, which are defined as relative and absolute decoupling in present studies.…”

Waste to energy plant operation under the influence of market and legislation conditioned changes

“…This hypothesis was also adapted to MSW and called waste Kuznets curve hypothesis (WKC) and proved that household MSW generation per capita income also follows this correlation [14]. Also, this threshold was already reached by one part of the households/provinces in Japan [14] and Italy [15]. This trend shows that solving waste problem by building new waste disposal facilities can become unviable because increasing tendency in the MSW generation will come to an end.…”

“…This trend was already described by Kuznets curve hypothesis (EKC) which claims that economy growth (that can be defined by income per capita) has a negative impact on environment to a certain point after which environmental impact is reducing. This hypothesis was also adapted to MSW and called waste Kuznets curve hypothesis (WKC) and proved that household MSW generation per capita income also follows this correlation [14]. Also, this threshold was already reached by one part of the households/provinces in Japan [14] and Italy [15].…”

Circular economy, recycling and end-of-waste

“…In this context, George et al (2015) developed their circular economy model, which takes into consideration pollution and recyclable material input, next to economic parameters. The model concludes that economic growth alone cannot maintain/improve existing environmental quality (contrary to waste Kuznets Curve (Ichinose et al, 2015)) and to do so the recycling ratio needs to be increased.…”