Name: Charlotte Alofs Student number: s1260197
Thesis supervisor: Dr. Peter van Wijck
MASTERTHESIS PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION
An explanation of the link between the
type of waste schemes in Dutch
municipalities and their recycling
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of contents 2
1. Introduction 3
1.1 Practical relevance 3
1.2 Academic relevance 5
1.3 Puzzle and Research question 5
2 Case 7
2.1 Situation in the Netherlands 7
3. Theoretical framework 12
3.1 Environmental taxes and policy 12
3.2 Environmental behavior 17 3.3 Waste management 19 3.4 Pay-as-you-throw schemes 22 3.5 Recycling 25 3.6 Hypotheses 28 4 Research design 31 4.1 Operationalization 31 4.1.1 Total waste 31 4.1.2 Residual waste 32 4.1.3 Recycling 32 4.1.4 Waste schemes: 33 4.1.5 Elderly ratio 34 4.1.6 Urbanisation ratio 34 4.1.7 Political preference 35 4.1.8 Income 35 4.2 Case selection 36 4.3 Data sources 37 4.3.1 Dependent 38 4.3.2 Independent 38 4.3.3 Control 39 4.4 Hypotheses 44 4.4.1 Hypothesis one 45 4.4.2 Hypothesis two 45 4.4.3 Hypothesis three 46 5 Analysis 47 5.1 Descriptive statistics 47 5.2 Hypothesis 1 54 5.3 Hypothesis 2 56 5.4 Hypothesis 3 58 6 Conclusion 61 6.1 Limitations 63 6.2 Future research 63 Bibliography 65
Appendix A: Municipal waste systems 116
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Practical relevance
In the past years, there is more emphasis on the impact that humankind has on the planet earth and how the damage that humans have caused can be recovered or stopped. Only since a few decades, scientific knowledge about climate change is being brought into the political arena (WMO, 2016). Since these times, the topic of environmental protection has become wider known to the general public. The protection of the world and the options that are available to do so were brought forwards by entrepreneurs and later on reached the tipping point (Finnemore & Sikkink, 1998, pp. 896-897). As this tipping point was reached, the topic was brought to the international stage. With climate agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, the world tries to work together in protecting the planet for future generations (United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, 2014).
These agreements are very important for the global collaboration on the topic of the protection of the environment. These are the places where the outline is sketched on how to deal with the big picture. The actual change however, has to be happen on a far smaller scale. There are numerous ways and plans that can make even the slightest difference to the environment. One of these ways in the burden on the planet can be made smaller, is by producing less waste. On a big scale, the total amount of waste in the world leads to big problems, with the production of plastic being twenty times what is was fifty years ago (Suaria, et al., 2016). This waste causes problems. On a European scale, there is a waste problem in terms of a plastic soup in the Mediterranean Sea that causes micro plastics to roam freely around the surface (Suaria, et al., 2016). When zooming even closer in on the world map it is seen that in the Netherlands, all households together produced 3464 kilotons of waste in 2014 (Rijkswaterstaat, 2017).
Not only is it the environmental effect of the waste that is damaging, the economic effects of the waste are also substantial. The waste-sector yearly makes seven billion Euros on the Dutch waste (Vereniging Afvalbedrijven, 2015). This number is this high, because of the fact that the average Dutch person produces 495 kilograms of waste per year (Vereniging Afvalbedrijven, 2015).
One more time there will be zoomed in, because the waste management in the Netherlands is organized by the municipalities. The municipalities have the freedom in how they regulate the waste collection and how the payment of the collection is organised. The municipalities have the freedom to design their own waste schemes. This means that they can vary in the height of the charges, but it also means that the municipality can choose what and how is charged. In this, there are roughly two options. The first option is to charge the same for each household or type of household. The second option is to charge individual households, depending on the amount of waste that they produced. In developing their policies, municipalities have to look at both the costs of their policies and at the environmental consequences. The policy in waste schemes is one in which both of the factors above do not contradict each other. When the population does a better job in recycling, the municipality has two advantages. Firstly, there is the advantage for the total environment, because less waste has to be burned or disposed and more waste can be re-used in the circular economy. Secondly, there is the economic component. Because there is less waste to dispose, the municipality has to pay less to do so and the citizens pay less waste disposal tax.
Therefore, it is of importance for municipalities to know how to nudge their citizens into making the right decisions and getting them to recycle more. This research aims on finding a correlation between this recycling behaviour and the type of waste
schemes that municipalities can have. This way, municipalities have more information about the consequences of their waste schemes and can therefore make a considered decision.
1.2 Academic relevance
In recent years, there have been a lot of different researches into the topic of the waste collection schemes. It is a popular topic, because it has both economic and environmental implications and it is also a topic that involves every citizen. There are a lot of links between waste schemes and other topics, such as illegal dumping and compliance to the scheme itself.
There also is a lot written about recycling, for example in how different kinds of personalities can predict a certain level of recycling. There are researches on how education can influence and which factors all play a role in the degree of recycling of people. These researches have been of a great help in shaping this research, because they provide a theoretical background and help gathering the control variables.
What is still missing in literature, is an empirical research to look into the connection between the type of waste scheme of a municipality and the degree in which citizens recycle their household waste, controlled for confounders. This research aims to fill in this gap.
1.3 Puzzle and Research question
In many municipalities, the policy regarding waste collection has changed from a flat rate waste scheme towards a waste scheme which has variable rates depending on the amount of waste that a household produces, or is going to change. This has got economic implications, but also environmental implications. It is not known however,
a municipality however, it is important to know what the effect is of a different waste scheme, as a change in policy is costly and time-consuming. To investigate what the effect of the different waste schemes are on the rates of recycling in Dutch municipalities, the research question will be:
“What is the effect of the type of waste scheme on the recycling behaviour in Dutch municipalities?”
To answer this question, there are a couple of sub-questions that have to be answered first.
The first sub-question will be about the effects of different types of policies and taxes and what kind of effect they have. The question will be: ‘What kinds of waste policies are there and what kind of effect do they have on the environment?’
The second sub-question will be focussing on the differences in the types of waste collection, in order to be able to make a good comparison between the different models. The question is ‘What are the differences in the types of waste collection?’
The last sub-question is focussing on the societal factors that influence the amount of waste per person. The main reason to discover these societal factors, is to be able to correct for other factors that may affect the research question. This question is about tracking down the factors that may cause confounder biases, reversed causality of collection biases. The questions will therefore be: ‘What are the factors that influence the production of waste’ and ‘what are the factors that influence recycling behaviour?’
2
CASE
In this chapter, the background on the topic of waste schemes is given, as well as the current waste scheme situation of the municipalities in the Netherlands.
In recent years, the governments and supra-governmental organizations have focused on the circular economy. This means that the economy and its products are not linear. The latter would mean that the lifecycle of a product has a beginning with new raw materials and after being used for what the product was designed to do, ends in the garbage. Contrary to this linear economy, in the circular economy the products do not go to the garbage at the end of their life span, but are being stripped down and used as raw materials for new products (Korhonen, Nuur, Feldmann, & Eshetu Birkie, 2018, p. 544). In the European Union, this changed emphasis is also seen, and the focus on the long term in getting a circular economy, is to reduce the packaging waste and residual household waste (European Commission, 2015). The responsible governmental actors for this last type of waste are the municipalities, who can make their own policy regarding their waste schemes.
2.1 Situation in the Netherlands
In the latest coalition agreement of the Dutch government, the concept of the circular economy is also mentioned in a national program to improve this economic method and use the best practices. Besides this, the taxes on dumping and burning waste will be increased from 2019 onwards. This is done as part of a sustainability policy package that aims at getting more eco-friendly citizens. The costs of this new policy therefore, are to be paid by the citizens and companies (VVD, CDA, D66, & ChristenUnie, 2017, pp. 46, 65). These examples show the larger emphasis of the government towards less waste disposal and more recycling.
In order to work with sustainable and re-used materials however, the waste has to be sorted. This is already done in the households, where the waste is produced (Afval Overleg Orgaan, 2003). A way for the municipalities to make sure the households produce less waste and recycle more, is to give an economic incentive. This can be done by differentiating waste disposal tariffs between households to ratio of the amount of residual waste that is produced. This way, the less residual waste is produced, the less the household has to pay as a waste disposal tax (Water, Verkeer en Leefomgeving / Afval en Circulair, 2017). Latest years, more and more municipalities chose this option, in which households are charged for the weight or volume of their waste.
In this research, the focus will be on the relationship between the kind of waste scheme, whether fixed or variable, and the recycling ratio in Dutch municipalities. To do this, it has to be clear which kind of waste schemes are used in the Netherlands. Roughly, there can be made a distinction between the municipalities that choose to have a fixed rate, so a rate that is independent from the amount of waste a household produces. On the other hand there are variable rates, in which the height of the charges depends at least for a part on the amount of waste that is produced.
The waste schemes are checked for all 380 municipalities in the Netherlands in 2018. This is the year that is chosen as the cut-off for the waste schemes of the municipalities and the municipalities that existed in 2018 are taken to participate in the research. The periods in which the waste producing behavior of the municipalities is measured in 2000 and 2016. These years are chosen because from 2000 onwards, the information around the waste behavior is getting complete. 2016 is the latest year of which data is available at the moment. These schemes are seen in table one. In figure one, it is seen which municipality uses which system. In recent years, Rijkswaterstaat made a document which also held the waste schemes of all Dutch municipalities.
However, upon doing a random check it was found out that for at least one of the checked municipalities, the information in their document did not correspond with the information that was provided by the municipalities. Therefore, there is a list included with municipal information on the waste schemes of all the municipalities in Appendix I.
In the table below, the content of the different waste schemes can be found. When there are different kinds of waste schemes in a municipality, they are all named, because it is not known what the ratio in-between the different schemes is. In the case of different schemes within a municipality, it is mostly that there are different schemes for households with roll containers and households with underground disposal systems. Another reason that different schemes within municipalities are seen is a recent merge of municipalities, where in which a combined policy has yet to be made.
Code Fixed or variable costs
Waste scheme
A Fixed Fixed tariff for all households
B Fixed Fixed tariff depending on number of residents C Fixed Fixed tariff depending on container size
D Fixed Fixes tariff depending on number of residents and container size
E Variable Fixed tariff plus variable tariff based on volume F Variable Fixed tariff plus variable tariff based on weight
G Variable Fixed tariff plus variable tariff based on municipal bags H Variable Fixed tariff plus variable tariff based on volume and
I Variable Fixed tariff plus variable tariff based on volume and municipal bags
J Variable Fixed tariff based on number of residents plus variable tariff based on volume
K Variable Fixed tariff based on number of residents plus variable tariff based on municipal bags
L Variable Fixed tariff based on number of residents plus variable tariff based on volume and municipal bags
M Variable Fixed tariff depending on container size plus variable tariff based on volume
N Variable Fixed tariff depending on container size plus variable tariff based on volume and municipal bags
Table 1: Codes of different waste schemes123 Source: See Appendix I4
1 Volume base means that the volume of the waste is measured by counting the amount of
times that a container is offered to the authority to be emptied or the amount of times that
an underground disposal system is used.
2 Municipal bags systems mean that in order for waste to be picked up, users have to use
special and more expensive bags, in which a part of the disposal fee is captured.
3 Weight based disposal fees mean that the user pays an amount per kilogram of waste that
is disposed. This is measured when the waste is picked up.
Fixed A Almelo Almere Baarn Bedum Best Borne Brielle Dordrecht Dronten Grave Hardinxveld-Giessendam Hellevoetsluis Leerdam Meppel Papendrecht Purmerend Roermond Terschelling Valkenburg aan de Geul Vlissingen Wijk bij Duurstede Wormerland Zaanstad B Aa en Hunze Achtkarspelen Alblasserdam Albrandswaard Alkmaar Alphen aan den Rijn Alphen-Chaam Ameland Amersfoort Amstelveen Amsterdam Appingedam Arnhem Assen Barendrecht Barneveld Beemster Beverwijk De Bilt Blaricum Borsele Breda Bunnik Capelle aan den IJssel Castricum Coevorden Dantumadiel Delft Delfzijl Diemen Doetinchem Dongen Dongeradeel Drechterland Echt-Susteren Edam-Volendam Eemnes Eemsmond Eindhoven Elburg Emmen Enkhuizen Epe Ermelo Ferwerderadiel Geertruidenberg Giessenlanden Goeree-Overflakkee Goes Goirle Gooise Meren Gorinchem Gouda ’s-Gravenhage Groningen Haarlem Haarlemmerliede en Spaarnwoude Harderwijk Harlingen Heemskerk Heerhugowaard Heiloo Den Helder Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht ’s-Hertogenbosch Hillegom Hilversum Hollands Kroon Hoogeveen Hoorn Houten Huizen Hulst IJsselstein Kaag en Braassem Katwijk Koggenland Kollumerland en Nieuwkruisland Krimpen aan den IJssel Landerd Landsmeer Langedijk Lansingerland Laren Leeuwarden Leiden Leiderdorp Leidschendam-Voorburg Lelystad Loon op Zand Maassluis Medemblik Middelburg Midden-Delfland Midden-Drenthe Mill en Sint Hubert Moerdijk Molenwaard Montfoort Nieuwegein Nieuwkoop Noord-Beveland Noordenveld Noordoostpolder Noordwijk Noordwijkerhout Nunspeet Oldebroek Oostzaan Opmeer Ouder-Amstel Oudewater Peel en Maas Pekela Pijnacker-Nootdorp Reimerswaal Renswoude Rhenen Ridderkerk Rijssen-Holten Rijswijk De Ronde Venen Rotterdam Rozendaal Schagen Scherpenzeel Schiedam Schiermonnikoog Sliedrecht Sluis Smallingerland Soest Son en Breugel Stede Broec Stichtse Vecht Súdwest-Fryslân Terneuzen Texel Tholen Tilburg Tytsjerksteradiel Uden Uitgeest Uithoorn Utrecht Valkenswaard Veendam Veere Veldhoven Velsen Venlo Vlaardingen Vlieland Voorschoten Waadhoeke Waalre Waddinxveen Wageningen Wassenaar Waterland Weert Weesp Westerveld Westland Weststellingwerf Westvoorne Wijdemeren Woerden De Wolden Zandvoort Zederik Zeewolde Zeist Zoetermeer Zundert Zwijndrecht Zwolle C Aalsmeer Berkelland Bloemendaal Ten Boer De Fryske Marren Haaksbergen Haarlemmermeer Hellendoorn Helmond Lopik Nissewaard Oegstgeest Oss Rheden Steenbergen Urk Vianen D Baarle-Nassau Bergen (NH.) Oude IJsselstreek Teylingen Utrechtse Heuvelrug Variable E Aalburg Aalten Apeldoorn Asten Beesel Bergeijk Bergen (L.) Bergen op Zoom Binnenmaas Bladel Brunssum Bunschoten Buren Cranendonck Cromstrijen Culemborg Dalfsen Dinkelland Doesburg Drimmelen Duiven Ede Eersel Etten-Leur Geldermalsen Geldrop-Mierlo Gilze en Rijen Haaren Halderberge Hardenberg Hattem Heerde Heerenveen Heeze-Leende Hengelo Heusden Hilvarenbeek Hof van Twente Kampen Kerkrade Korendijk Laarbeek Leudal Leusden Lingewaal Lochem Losser Maasdriel Maasgouw De Marne Neder-Betuwe Neerijnen Nijkerk Nuenen, Gerwen en Nederwetten Oirschot Oisterwijk Oldambt Oldenzaal Olst-Wijhe Ommen Onderbanken Oost Gelre Opsterland Oud-Beijerland Overbetuwe Roerdalen Rucphen Simpelveld Sint-Michielsgestel Someren Stadskanaal Staphorst Steenwijkerland Strijen Tiel Tubbergen Twenterand Veenendaal Venray Werkendam West Maas en Waal Westerwolde Winterswijk Woensdrecht Zaltbommel Zuidplas Zutphen Zwartewaterland F Borger-Odoorn Grootegast Haren Leek Marum Mook en Middelaar Nederweert Tynaarlo Zuidhorn G Boekel Boxmeer Cuijk Horst aan de Maas Putten Sint Anthonis H Beek Bernheze Eijsden-Margraten Loppersum Meierijstad Oosterhout Schinnen Sittard-Geleen Stein Winsum Zoeterwoude I Bronckhorst Brummen Deurne Gemert-Bakel Maastricht Nijmegen Nuth Reusel-De Mierden Voerendaal Voorst J
Beuningen Bodegraven-Reeuwijk Boxtel Druten Enschede Gennep Gulpen-Wittem Heerlen Kapelle Krimpenerwaard Landgraaf Lingewaard Lisse Midden-Groningen Montferland Ooststellingwerf Raalte Renkum Roosendaal Schouwen-Duiveland Vught Waalwijk Westervoort Wierden Wijchen Woudenberg Zevenaar K Heumen Meerssen L Berg en Dal Vaals M Deventer Woudrichem N Heemstede
3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
In the previous chapter, the case of waste schemes in the Netherlands is explained. This answers some of the sub questions made in the introduction, but not all of them. In order to answer all the questions, the theoretical background of waste management and recycling has to be looked into. In order to do this, there will be a narrowed down theoretical framework, in which the research is getting more and more specified towards recycling. There are two reasons to do this. First of all, in order to understand the theories in the later parts of this chapter, it is key to have a framework in which to place them. The background that is necessary to understand the theories at the end is given in the first half of this chapter. Secondly, this research is not only of recycling, but also about the wider concept of waste policy. Therefore, it is key to also explain these theories, as they answer the sub-questions and give subjects to reflect on in the hypothesis.
This chapter will begin with the environmental taxes and policies, then the environmental behaviour will be discussed. After this, the waste management will be reviewed and this will be followed up by the Pay-As-You-Throw schemes. Lastly, the topic of recycling will be covered. After this last topic, some of the elements from the chapter will be brought back when the hypotheses are set forth.
3.1 Environmental taxes and policy
This part of the chapter focusses on environmental taxes and policies. As waste schemes are also an environmental tax and policy, this part is used to explain the essentials and give context. This is done in order to understand the waste schemes, how they work and where they come from. In order to explain environmental policy, the government can use several different instruments. For example, there are governmental standards and rules. In this case, the government can make a rule that
every entity has to comply to. These instruments have strict limits and leave less room for freedom and the process to get used to the new policy.
On top of this, these measures may not be as economically efficient as other measures, because there is no room to curve the policy to an economical optimal outcome by being able to choose what fits a household best, as there is no option to choose between complying and not complying. These policies are also in need of a lot of information that is very specific to the own area of industry, which makes it expensive. It is also an advantage of this form of policy that the state has full control over the policy, and that there is no option to trade in compliance for money. The types of standards that can be used are for example environmental quality standards, emission standards, technology standard, performance standards, products standards or process standards. It is also possible to use permits or licenses in order to restrict environmental pollution (Bernstein, 1991, pp. 1-2, 6-9). They can also lead to under-regulation, in which the assumed optimal regulation will be too loose when brought into reality. This can lead to economic losses. The over-regulation that can be in place with environmental taxes, as is the case with the next option, the estimations for the tax are often too high, which is not optimal as well (Ebert & Welsch, 2011, p. 2458).
The different forms of policy can lead to optimal outcomes, but the degree in which the measures interfere have to be right (Cherry, Kallbekken, & Kroll, 2012, p. 93). Another option is to make use of the instrument of market-bases mechanisms (Bailey, 2002, p. 237). With these mechanisms, also the environmental taxes, the incentives to change behavior in such a way that it is more environmentally friendly, are from an economical nature. A disadvantage of these measures is that the policy cannot fully be executed as might be the intention, because the people can choose their own preferences in terms of accepting the policy or paying extra fee (Bernstein, 1991, p. 3).
A few of the economic instruments that can be used are firstly pollution charges, under which the emission charges, user charges, administrative charges and tax differentiation belong. Secondly, a market can be created in which market permits are available as an economical instrument to dam environmental pollution, as well as liability insurances, where the damage that is created towards the environment is being redeemed by individuals or companies and paid for by insurances. Deposit-refund, which means that you buy off the environmental damage when you buy the product, and subsidiary systems are other types of economical instruments, as well enforcement incentives such as noncompliance fees and performance bonds. The latter means that there is being paid for compensating the pollution and that money will be returned when the pollution is within limits. There can of course also be a mix of the different instruments (Bernstein, 1991, pp. 10-18).
According to Ekins (1999), these environmental taxes can be classified in three different incentives and uses of the tax revenues. Firstly, these taxes can be cost-covering. In this, there are user charges, where you pay as you pollute, and earmarked charges, where all the revenues of the tax are earmarked co cover one particular cost group. Secondly, there are incentive taxes, that are meant to alter the behavior of tax-payers. A third incentive of an environmental tax is to raise revenues (Ekins, 1999, pp. 42-43). In contrast to the first two, this tax generates more money than what is needed to compensate the economic costs and the costs of the externalities. With waste schemes, all three of the above can occur, sometimes even simultaneously. However, when there is no relation between the tax and the amount of waste that is produces, the incentive effect will be absent (Ekins, 1999, pp. 45-50).
When confronted with an environmental tax that is based on market-based mechanisms, the entity that has to comply with the rules has roughly speaking two
options. The first option is to comply to the rules that were intended with designing the new, environmental friendly tax and therefore adjusting behavior in such a way that the entity has to pay less taxes. Another option is not to alter the behavior and therefore paying more taxes than in the first option. The latter seems more likable as an option, but there are costs involved with complying to stricter environmental standards. When the costs of complying to these standards are lower than the extra costs of the taxation, it is likely that entities comply with the taxation and the environmental standards (Bailey, 2002, p. 236). In any case, there will be a middle way in-between with the outcome that is socially and economically most optimal (Bernstein, 1991, p. 4). A disadvantage of this is that the taxes might be regressive. This means that with the environmental taxation on waste, the poorer households will use relatively more of their available money to pay for the tax than the richer households. In addition to this, it is assumed that when tax system is less regressive, the double dividend as well as the economic optimum will be more likely to obtain (Chiroleu-Assouline & Fodha, 2014, pp. 127, 130, 137, 140).
There is a double dividend hypothesis which means that there are multiple advantages in agreeing with the environmental tax (Goulder, 1995). In this case, this is about the weak form of the double dividend. This entails that first of all, the environment improves so there is an advantage from the better environment (Oueslati, 2014). Secondly, the taxes are lower when agreeing with the tax and altering behavior. In the weaker form, this entails that there is an advantage when the revenues are replaced in a distortionary manner. When the revenues are replaced in a lump-sum manner, the total costs, economic and environmental, are higher (Goulder, 1995, pp. 159-161). This hypothesis of the weak double dividend can be of relevance in explaining differences in behavior in recycling schemes. In this case, the distortionary taxes can be connected to the pay-as-you-throw waste schemes, whereas the lump-sum method can be paired with the lump-lump-sum waste scheme. The double-dividend
is more likely to be obtained in a higher degree when there is a higher degree of heterogeneity in the community that is entitled to the tax (Chiroleu-Assouline & Fodha, 2014, pp. 140-141).
This double-dividend means that there are positive aspects for the society. However, with a Pigovian taxes, like the environmental taxes, a lot of people do not understand or do not want to understand that taxes have any other means than to raise money for the public treasury (Kallbekken & Sælen, Public acceptance for environmental taxes: Self-interest, environmental and distributional concerns, 2011, p. 2967). People tend not to believe that their behavior is altered by a tax and seem to only see the fact that they have to pay. This comes on top of the fact that people do not favor any market interference in general. Even though an interference will be positive for the economy as a whole, there is an aversion of taxes and in some extend to other regulatory instruments (Cherry, Kallbekken, & Kroll, The acceptability of efficiency-enhancing environmental taxes, subsidies and regulation: An experimental investigation, 2012, pp. 94-95). When people understand the whole tax scheme, the change will be bigger that they favor the environmental tax (Gaunt, Rye, & Allen, 2007, pp. 93-99). If you want the society to back up the environmental tax, it is important to educate people in why it is important to do so and what the link is between the environmental disadvantages and the new taxation, as well as why the tax that is proposed is going to help reduce the externalities that did arise. This comes on top of the option that the revenues of the tax can be earmarked to help gain acceptance for the environmental tax (Kallbekken, Kroll, & Cherry, 2011, p. 55). This might help with the understanding and the compliance to the new tax (Kallbekken & Sælen, Public acceptance for environmental taxes: Self-interest, environmental and distributional concerns, 2011, p. 2972).
3.2 Environmental behavior
In this part of the chapter, there will be a focus on the behavior of people when it comes to environmental policy and the reasons to comply with those policies. This is included because it explains statements that are made later on in the chapter, for example the statement on the link between political preference and recycling behavior.
Accompanying with the theory mentioned above, in which the problem arose that people tend not to believe in the fact that there can be another effect of taxation than only the revenues it brings, there is the problem that people tend to disagree with a policy that conflicts with their own believes. People are far more accepting to new information on a subject, when this information already in in line with their own believes (Hart, et al., 2009, p. 579). On top of this comes the presumability that not only do people not accept other information, they also hold on to the standpoint they have taken rather quickly. People tend to have a need to close believes in their minds, instead of keeping their minds open to new or other arguments that might change their opinion (Golec De Zavala, Cislak, & Wesolowska, 2010, pp. 521-523). As people tend to close themselves to these new ideas, the society will have a more conservative attitude towards change and the willingness to change behavior will be less than what is expected if people would behave completely rational.
In later stadia, the willingness to change behavior and to agree with a policy, becomes larger. The aversion of the policy decreases, because the public gets to see what the effects of the policy are and how this is also beneficial for their own environment (Cherry, Kallbekken, & Kroll, Accepting market failure: Cultural worldviews and the opposition to corrective environmental policies, 2017, p. 199). Another way in which to enlarge the amount of acceptance and the degree of agreement, is to choose subsidies as a policy, instead of taxes or quantitative regulations. What stands out
a perspective that everyone is equal, the aversion to the environmental policy measures is smaller than when people think the opposite. The same can be seen in the contradiction between an individualistic approach and people who have more of a community spirit. The latter have less of an aversion towards environmental policy. For policy makers, the combination of the characteristics and the fast that the willingness to change differs over time, is something to keep in the back of their heads when designing new policies (Cherry, Kallbekken, & Kroll, Accepting market failure: Cultural worldviews and the opposition to corrective environmental policies, 2017, p. 201).
It might be the case that the people with a equalitarian and communal worldview, are more environmentalistic than their opposites. There is research on this exact topic of the characteristics in peoples personalities that can predict the engagement that they have towards the environment. So it seems, that being agreeable and open are pointers of being a more environmentally friendly individual. On itself, these characteristics seem to be an umbrella under which also the characteristics of cooperation, compliance, empathy, a greater self-esteem and an overall greater investment in social arrangements are hanging (Hirsch, 2010, p. 247) (Milfont & Sibley, 2012). This seems to go along with the above mentioned community approach, which also predicted higher levels of compliance with environmental policies.
The openness that also predicts people to be more environmentally conscious, is on itself an umbrella for being more able to open up to other ideas, more tolerant to other people and less stubborn in general (Hirsch, 2010, p. 247) (Milfont & Sibley, 2012, p. 188). This comes back in the assumption that people tend not to comply with environmental policies, when they do not stroke with their own believes. The causality between the behavioral explanations around environmental policies and the personality characteristics that predict the environmental engagement is partly
explained by the research of Milfont and Sibley (2012). They find that when there is more environmental engagement in a state, the level of openness and agreeability are also higher (Milfont & Sibley, 2012, p. 192). How the causality precisely works is not clear, but there is a clear connection. It is therefore of importance to look at these variables when comparing different environmental policies, in order not to be biased.
3.3 Waste management
In this part of the chapter, there will be zoomed in on the different angles of waste management policies and schemes and the instruments that municipalities can use in their waste schemes. In terms of waste management, a distinction can be made between a policy where the polluter pays and a policy where the user pays. When it is about the polluter that has to pay, the incentive is to punish per unit of pollution or waste. When talking about a policy where the user pays, this payment is for the service that is provided to handle the waste (Bernstein, 1991, pp. 1-2).
In the Netherlands, the municipalities are responsible for the waste schemes. This means that they make the policy about how to deal with the household waste within their borders (Breeman, van Noort, & Rutgers, 2012, p. 89). In this, they still have to follow the rules of governments that are higher in hierarchy, so the moving space for the municipal policies are limited. In the previous chapter, the economic and regulatory instruments were set out. For municipalities that have to handle waste, most of the time when they use regulatory instruments, they will use permits and licenses. If economic instruments are used, most will choose either emission charges, user charges, product charges, subsidies, deposit-refund systems of performance bonds (Bernstein, 1991, pp. 21-22).
for example the quantity of the collection, the amount that fits in the bins, the type of bins and what to put in which and the type of payment. This means that the rules around recycling will also fall under this regulatory instrument (Bernstein, 1991, pp. 53-54). However, there is a shortcoming to using these regulations as the main policy instrument. This is because regulations will focus on the formal routes of collecting and recycling and not to the informal. With the economical instruments, as listed below, the incentives provided to produce less waste work in both cases, formal and informal (Matter, Ahsan, Marbach, & Zurbrügg, 2015, p. 328).
One of the economical instruments used in household waste schemes are the charges. These can be user charges, both solid and depending on quantity or disposal charges, that can be specific to the type of waste and that offer an incentive to produce less residual waste. Product chargers, that are paid for at the purchase of the waste to be are also instruments that can be used. The instrument of subsidies can be used for the disposal of the waste, but can also be used for education (Bernstein, 1991, pp. 55-57). As is stated in a previous chapter, the environmentally friendly attitude partly depends on peoples believes. When subsidies are used for education, the believes can be altered, which might have a positive effect on the amount of waste that is provided by households and how they provide it, recycled or not. Deposit-refund charges can also be used in waste policies, this is mostly not part of the municipal waste schemes, but executes on a national level, for example the bottle refund system (Bernstein, 1991, p. 58).
When talking about the user charges of waste, it does not seem to bring a much larger administrative bill when the charges are not solid but variable (Slavik & Pavel, 2013, p. 74). This will especially be the case as a lot of the process is digitalized and done automatically. Furthermore, the variable charges are saving costs in general, as there is more recycling and separation of different kinds of waste and therefore less
residual waste (Slavik & Pavel, 2013, p. 75). The fact that the waste is all separated and therefore also collected separately, can make the costs of the waste collection itself higher, simply because there are more different containers to empty in more different trucks. Besides this, it is important that there is enough space to be able to conduct all the different forms of waste separation, because if the space is too limited, the compliance will be lower (Matter, Ahsan, Marbach, & Zurbrügg, 2015, p. 328).
Another disadvantage of the variable charges, is that people might have an incentive to dump their waste in an illegal manner. There are a couple of factors that contribute to the likelihood of illegal dumping. Firstly, the unit based charges are an incentive to dump illegally. Secondly, people tend to dump their household waste, when there is no place to go with it, so if the waste collecting standards are not sufficient or if the execution is insufficient. In the third place comes the enforcement on illegal dumping. When there is no enforcement and the change to be caught is small, the dumping will increase. The same thing happens when there is no enforcement power to punish when illegal dumping occurs (Liu, Kong, & Santibanez Gonzalez, 2017, p. 1428). These results are all elastic, so when there is more enforcement by one percent, the percentage that illegal dumping is reduced will be more than one percent. It can therefore be helpful to make the regulations and the corresponding punishments when they are not followed, more strict. The illegal dumping can be corrected for income of a municipality, as the amount of waste that is dumped illegally, reduces in an elastic matter, the higher the income is (Liu, Kong, & Santibanez Gonzalez, 2017, pp. 1433, 1436).
What also plays a role in the compliance to the regulations, is the character of the citizens. In the economical sense, this means that the higher the income of a household is, the more waste the household will produce. The effect that is seen in all socio-economical groups, is that not only the current higher income groups
produce more waste, but that it goes up along with a income raise within a household. (Sujauddin, Huda, & Rafiqul Hoque, 2008, p. 1692). When people are older, they tend to comply more to the waste reduction schemes than when they are younger, or at least they think so themselves. Other factors that make that people think they are complying to a more positive outcome are consciousness and less political cynicism (Swami, Chamorro-Premuzic, Snelgar, & Furnham, 2011, p. 24). The political cynicism in special is something that the municipalities can have an influence on and which can be used to get people in line with the policy.
3.4 Pay-as-you-throw schemes
In this part, the pay-as-you-throw household waste schemes are discussed. This is done to show the instruments, but most of all the incentives of people to comply to these schemes. In order to keep the document readable, the schemes will be referred to as ‘PAYT’ schemes. What is meant with those schemes in this research, are the waste schemes in which there is a variable amount of money that is paid for by households for the waste disposal. In this schemes, the policy is less like a tax, where an amount is paid, apart from what costs you make. It is more like a service based system where you pay for what you use (Elia, Gnoni, & Tornese, 2015, p. 188). The variable sum in these schemes is based on the amount of waste that is produced and offered by those households. Often, apart from this variable sum, there is also a fixed sum, that covers the service charges. By having this fixes sum next to the PAYT scheme, not only can the fixed costs be paid, the incentive to go around the system and illegally get (Puig-Ventosa, 2008, p. 2771). Over all, the principles of PAYT schemes are that the producer of the waste is identified as the producer and polluter. Also, the amount that is produced is calculated and there is a unit pricing for each unit of waste that is produced (Bilitewski, 2008, p. 2766).
counting the number of waste bags or the number of time the waste bin is set out to collect. The second option is to measure the weight of the waste. This last option is the most effective one, as it increases the recycling and reduces the landfill waste more than the measure of volume or a fixed amount (Dunne, Convery, & Gallagher, 2008, pp. 2827, 2831). This partly has to do with the fact that in weight based schemes, the price-elasticity is higher than with the other type of schemes. This means that when the costs are rising, the amount of waste goes in proportion further down than the price went up (Bel & Gradus, 2016, p. 178). The exact effects of the PAYT schemes differ across numbers and numbers of different articles, that all provide other outcomes. Therefore, there are no precise outcomes stated here, because the wide arrange of numbers shows that these are very variable across different times and places. These differences are related to culture, but also to for example environmental activism, which is altering over time (Dijkgraaf & Gradus, 2009, p. 14). What these articles have in common, is that it is stated that the amount of waste will be less with a PAYT scheme than with a fixed costs system and that the recycling goes up.
Lately, the use of these schemes has increased, at the expense of the schemes with a fixed sum per household (Brown & Johnstone, 2014, p. 132). This also has to do with the fact that the European Commission came with a new waste related directive in 2008. In this directive countries are required to prevent waste, recycle and so forth. As this directive came into force, new policies were made to fit to these new and stricter rules for less waste and separated waste (European Commission, 2008). This seems logical, as with PAYT schemes, households have an incentive to recycle more or to buy less potential waste. The incentive of a better environment is a good incentive, but less tangible. With the PAYT scheme, you really see what the effect is when you produce less waste, the bill will be smaller. People tend to oppose the new schemes before they go into force, but once the policy is rolled out, the acceptance goes up, as people see that it is a good incentive, although they might still not really
like the policy itself. Once the PAYT scheme is in effect, the acceptance of the scheme becomes even bigger than the acceptance of other instruments that are used for waste reduction (Brown & Johnstone, 2014, p. 138). The scheme also is the most fair, as people pay for the damage that they cause. This effect seems to be bigger in smaller municipalities than in bigger municipalities (Dunne, Convery, & Gallagher, 2008, p. 2827).
What helps in enlarging the incentives, is to frame the waste charges in such a way that it is not seen as another tax that is going on to the big bulk, but that is it meant to solve an environmental problem or another local problem that people are acquainted with. Another measure that might help with creating a higher acceptance, is to have campaigns to explain the scheme and to explain the polluter-pays principle. When the provision of information is not done well, the acceptance is lower and people might not comply to the policy, simply because they don’t know how.
Other information that can be included to help the process from a fixed fee towards a PAYT system, are to explain how people can recycle and how home composting works (Puig-Ventosa, 2008, p. 2771) (Dunne, Convery, & Gallagher, 2008, p. 2832). In general, the acceptance seems higher with people who trust the government and people who are concerned about the environmental issues that come with waste generation (Brown & Johnstone, 2014, pp. 138-139).
The PAYT schemes have many advantages, but also a few drawbacks. The administrative costs of the running systems might not be very different, as seen in a previous chapter, but the transaction costs are something to keep in mind. The costs of transactions are in making sure that the bins each get a chip at which it can be recognized, which are a few Euro per chip. Also, the trucks to collect the waste have
to be modified to read those chips and to weigh the waste. This modification costs around €30.000 per truck (Dunne, Convery, & Gallagher, 2008, p. 2828).
Other costs that occur are educational costs and the enforcement costs when non-compliance occurs. Because if they are not taken into account, the policy might be misleading, as the actual costs might be much larger than the estimated costs (Kampas & White, 2002, p. 134). Socially, the problem is that the fees are not levelled, so that for the poorer households, the costs might go up a lot, compared to a solid fee that is connected to income. In order to overcome higher fees, people might seek loopholes to the new policy. One of these loopholes is to cram as much in a certain amount of space as possible, when it is about volume (Dunne, Convery, & Gallagher, 2008, p. 2828). When it is regarding weight, this is not possible, but illegal dumping is then a way to get rid of the residual waste, as well as illegal burning up the waste, contaminating recycling bins or dropping waste in municipalities with other systems.
3.5 Recycling
This last part of the chapter is furthest zoomed in and is about recycling. In this, the focus will be on the factors that have an effect on the recycling and these are discussed to discover possible biases. Within waste management, for example in the European Commission directive on waste, economical motives on the number one position (European Commission, 2008). They mostly do this because of the environmental component of creating less residual waste. With recycling, the key is to get households to show behavior that is responsible for the environment (Tabernero, Hernandez, Cuadrado, Luque, & Pereira, 2015, p. 193). This can be done by making recycling mandatory. The causation in this does not have to be that people do exactly what government says, but it can create norms that were previously not there (Starr & Nicolson, 2015, p. 16). These norms have a significant effect on the recycling behavior, especially in places with a more social pressure and a higher sense of collectivism
In the past couple of chapters, waste disposal and the behavior around is was mainly looked at from a rational and economical perspective. However, in the case of recycling, the incentives can be intrinsic next to being extrinsic. This is seen in the fact that people recycle, even if there is a fixed rate for their waste scheme. Environmental behavior is in most people a combination of motives of self-interest and selflessness. The behavior of recycling is not directly linked to these motives. First, there is an intention for recycling. This intention is triggered other things such as norms (Chan & Bishop, 2013, pp. 97-98).
Characteristic factors that have a positive effect on the execution of recycling, are a higher age and a higher education. Another aspect that influences the degree of recycling, is the household income. In term of waste production, it is seen that people will produce more waste as the income goes up (Sujauddin, Huda, & Rafiqul Hoque, 2008, p. 1692). In terms of recycling, there is also a positive relation. This means that as the income goes up, the degree of recycling will also go up as will the change that a person recycles (Schultz, Oskamp, & Mainieri, 1995, p. 108).
This correlation between recycling and income differs across the different goods that are recycled and is negative with some sorts of recycled goods, but aggregated, the correlation is positive (Saltzman, Duggal, & Williams, 1993, p. 34). An explanation for this dissimilarity can be found in that on the one hand, the opportunity costs of people with a higher income are also higher, which has an effect on the amount of time spend on recycling and on the amount of goods that are bought and consumed (Abbott, Nandeibam, & O'Shea, Recycling: Social norms and warm-glow revisited, 2013, p. 15) (Abbott, Nandeibam, & O'Shea, 2011, p. 2218). Factors that can play a role in the higher recycling rate are divers and are depending on other variables that have a positive effect on recycling, such as the level of education, having more space
available and age. These variables may on their turn have a positive effect on income themselves, or the other way around.
Political viewpoints of a municipality also have an effect on the recycling, as they correlate with the degree in which people comply to the recycling policy (Hage, Söderholm, & Berglund, 2009, p. 163). This compliance to the policy works for both the conservative party voters and the liberal party voters, but each in a different way. In order to get the more conservative people to comply to the recycling scheme, it is key to emphasize on civil duty of a society to comply to governmental schemes. In order to get the liberal people to have a higher degree of recycling however, it is key to emphasize on the harm that is done to society and fairness (Kidwell, Farmer, & Hardesty, 2013, pp. 355, 362). In the Netherlands, the emphasis around recycling is focused on the latter.
A big factor on the amount of recycling is the believe in a community. Recycling can become a communal goal and a social norm, that has a big effect of the amount of waste that is recycled. This can especially be seen in smaller communities (Tabernero, Hernandez, Cuadrado, Luque, & Pereira, 2015, pp. 197-198). When the whole community participates in this goal, the effects can also be seen. For an individual, their efforts can face into insignificance.
An important incentive for recycling stays the economic incentive. When the fees for the PAYT schemes go up, the amount of recycling also goes up. The recycling rate within PAYT schemes is therefore higher than in the fixes fee systems (Starr & Nicolson, 2015, pp. 14-15). This effect is significant, also because the PAYT schemes are elastic.
Infrastructure is an important factor in recycling. People tend to recycle more when the option to do so is right in front of them (O'Connor, Lerman, Fritz, & Hodde, 2010, p. 713). When the option to recycle is not there, or costs a lot of effort, people tend to leave it. What works best to encourage recycling in terms of infrastructure, is to pick it up at the curb site (Dunne, Convery, & Gallagher, 2008, p. 2831). Another factor that might help to get people recycling, is to fit the recycling program to the needs of their neighborhood and household. An example of this is to make recycling bins free, so the participation rate goes up and then let people choose their own size of recycling bin, that caters to their needs. This way, the infrastructure can be adjusted to the different households and together with making the recycling bin made better visible and stand out, recycling increases (Lane & Wagner, 2013, p. 38).
3.6 Hypotheses
In this chapter and the chapter before, the three sub questions are all answered. As these questions are answered, other questions pop up, that make a link between the theory that is described here and the case of the Dutch municipalities. These links are measured in an open environment. This means that there can be other factors that play a role in explaining the connections talked about below. From literature, we can conduct that the variables age, urbanization, income and political preference can be confounders. Therefore, when looking at the hypotheses, it should be taken into consideration that when there is a regression made, these variables are taken into account, to avoid a bias.
Hypothesis one
What is noticed first of all, is that in many municipalities, there is a waste scheme that is more costly than just a fixed rate for every household. There is a reason that municipalities choose this option, whether it is because of the environment, which should mean that there will be less waste produced, or for economic benefits, which should mean that there will be less waste produced. Maybe it even is both. The
question however, is if this policy of having a variable rate really works in lowering the waste production of households. Therefore, the first hypothesis will be:
H0: There is no connection between the type of waste scheme in a municipality
and the total waste.
This is the null hypothesis. However, looking at the literature it is expected that there is a connection. Therefore, the alternative hypothesis is:
H1: There is a negative connection between having a variable waste scheme in
a municipality and the total waste.
Hypothesis two
What also plays a role however, is the question if the residual waste is lower in the municipalities with a variable waste scheme. According to the literature, this will be lower in a variable scheme, because this is the part that has to be paid for in a variable waste scheme. The second hypothesis will therefore be:
H0: There is no connection between the type of waste scheme in a municipality
and the residual waste.
As is seen in the literature, there are many incentives, that hint that household in a municipality with a variable waste scheme will produce less residual waste. The alternative hypothesis therefore is:
H1: There is a negative connection between having a variable waste scheme in
Hypothesis three
Lastly, the research question will be posed as a hypothesis. In the questions above, it is seen that it is expected that both total waste and residual waste are lower in households in municipalities with variable waste schemes. It is unknown however how the recycling is connected to the type of waste scheme. The question therefore is if people with different types of waste schemes recycle in a different way. According to the literature it can be expected that people with variable rates will recycle better, because this is the waste that is not charged. Therefore, the null hypotheses will be:
H0: There is no connection between the type of waste scheme in a municipality
and the recycled waste.
The corresponding alternative hypothesis is:
H1: There is a positive connection between having a variable waste scheme in
a municipality and the recycled waste.
In the next chapter, these hypothesis will be further explained, as well as the variables in question. These variables will be operationalized, as well as all the possible confounders that are taken into consideration in the regression.
4 RESEARCH DESIGN
In this part of the research, the approach of the research is discussed. Firstly, the most important concepts and variables are operationalized and explained. After that, the case selection is explained and the data sources will be set out. Lastly, the way that the hypotheses are tested will be explained.
4.1 Operationalization
In the previous chapter, the hypotheses where brought up. However, the hypotheses and the confounders are made up of variables that are ambiguous and can be explained and used in many different ways. In this part of the research design, these concepts that are important will be explained. For the purpose of clarity of the document, the conceptualization and operationalization will be done at the same time for each concept. To make sure the definitions that are used in this research do not differ much from policy-definitions, some of the definitions are based on those that are given in the European Commission directive 2008/98/EC (European Commission, 2008).
4.1.1 Total waste
One of the most important concepts in this research, is the concept of waste. With waste, household waste is meant in this context. Specifically, waste is any substance that is discarded in the household. This means that the residual waste and the recycled waste, which will be conceptualized and operationalized on their own, are part of the waste category, as they are both discarded in the household.
When operationalizing waste, this will be done in a ratio measure by taking the amount of kilograms of total waste that is thrown away each year per person, as an average of a municipality. Only the waste that is thrown away by households that is according to the municipality policies is measured, as this is the amount of waste that
is weighed as household waste. When dumping illegally, throwing waste in municipal bins or in bins at work, it does not count as total household waste.
4.1.2 Residual waste
The total household waste is all the waste that is collected from the households by the municipality. This consists of recyclable waste on the one hand and the non-recyclable waste on the other hand. The residual waste is this non-non-recyclable part of the total waste. It is all waste that is not separated in specific recyclable containers and picked up separate.
When operationalizing, this happens in the same way as with the variable above, with a ratio measure. It is measured by taking the amount of kilograms of residual waste that is thrown away each year per person, as an average of a municipality.
4.1.3 Recycling
Even the research question, the word recycling is mentioned. With recycling in this research, the amount of waste that is collected by the municipality separate from residual waste and other recycling categories, with the purpose of bringing it back into the circular economy. This means that the materials are collected for the recovery in which waste materials are reprocessed or prepared to be reprocessed. The recycled waste category consists of the bulk waste, kitchen and garden waste, paper waste, glass waste, textile waste and chemical waste that is thrown away in a municipality.
When operationalizing, recycling is done in the way as seen above with the total waste, with a ratio measure. It is the amount of kilograms of recycled waste that is thrown away each year per person, as an average of a municipality. This includes the waste that is brought to municipal waste collection points by the households but does not include waste that is composed or burnt. The higher the number is, the more recycling will occur.
4.1.4 Waste schemes:
The first In this research, the main goal is to look at the difference in recycling level between the different kind of waste schemes. Here, these waste schemes will be conceptualized. A waste scheme is the policy that a municipality has regarding the collection of waste. This means that the waste scheme gives information on which categories of waste are collected and how and what the chargers are for these categories of waste and how it is charged. In the Netherlands, the 380 municipalities have fourteen different kind of waste schemes. These fourteen kinds of waste schemes are on their turn divided into two nominal categories.
There are the fixed rates, where there are solid user charges. In this kind of scheme, the municipality calculates the total expenditures of the household waste disposal and households all have to pay the same total fee per year, depending on for example household size or income. This means that the rate is independent of the amount of waste that is produced by a household. The other category is the variable rate category. These schemes consists of a pay-as-you-throw systems. In these systems, the municipality has either a fee for every time waste is laid out by a household, a fee per unit of volume of waste, per unit of weigh or a combination between those three elements. The key aspect in this second form of waste scheme, is that the height of the waste charges is depending on the amount of waste that is disposed by a household. In the first kind of scheme, this is independent of each other. In the waste schemes as talked about above, it is about the residual waste, so the waste that is not recycled right away.
These schemes are operationalized by doing a nominal measurement, as there is no scale in the waste schemes. For each municipality it is checked what kind of the fourteen waste scheme policy they have and then these categories are categorized on their own in either the fixed rate scheme class or the variable rate scheme class,
depending on the question if the a household is charged for the amount of waste they produce or if it does not matter how much waste is produced. In Figure 1 and Appendix A, these code systems are also seen.
4.1.5 Elderly ratio
The next concept is the concept of the elderly ratio. With the elderly ratio, the amount of elderly compared to the amount of people in the working age is meant. This ratio can go up because there are more elderly people, or because there are less people in the working ages in a municipality, or both. This concept is includes as a confounder because in the literature it is seen that elderly tend to comply better to the recycling policy. Therefore, municipalities with a higher elderly ratio will likely recycle better.
The operationalization of the elderly ratio is an interval measure. The way to calculate the elderly ratio is to look at the amount of elderly people in a municipality and divide this by the number of people in the working age. With elderly, people above the age of 65 are meant. With the working age, the age from 20 to 65 is meant.
4.1.6 Urbanisation ratio
The concept of urbanization means the degree in which people live in a highly densely populated municipality or in a rural area. This concept is added as a confounder because literature suggests that people in highly urbanized areas are less likely to recycle than people in more rural areas. This has to do with the fact that people in rural areas are more likely to have the space and infrastructure to recycle than people in the most dense areas.
In operationalizing terms, this means that this concept is measured on an ordinal measured Lickert scale from very heavily urbanized to not urbanized, based on the population density of the municipality (Babbie, 2010, p. 180). The reason to choose for an ordinal measure instead of a ratio measure, is because there are very big outliers to both ends that can put too much of an effect on the outcome. Besides this, it would
give a wrong image in municipalities with a highly dense center but with lots of rural areas around where no people live. When measuring in an ordinal measure, the proportions are better. People within municipalities are sorted in these classed based on the exact population density, the amount of people residing on one square kilometer of land, of their area.
4.1.7 Political preference
The concept of political preference makes a distinction in voting behavior between liberal voters and conservative voters in a municipalities. This confounder is included because according to the literature, liberals tend to follow the recycling rules when the focus is on the lower harm to society and fairness. Conservatives tend to comply because of a highly expected civil duty. In the Netherlands, the focus is on the harm to society and fairness rather than the civil duty. Therefore, it is expected that the municipalities with a higher ratio of liberal voters will comply more to the recycling scheme.
The operationalization is done with a nominal variable, in which the distinction is made between liberal voters and conservative voters. In the case of the Netherlands, the conservative parties are considered to be the PVV, CDA, SGP and ChristenUnie. The VVD, D66, GroenLinks and PvdA are considered to be liberal parties. There are many different distinctions that can be made when it comes to the political party distinction, but in this research this distinction is used, because it fits best to the variables that are used in literature (Otjes & Louwerse, 2015, pp. 64-66) (ProDemos, 2018) (Kirchner, 1988, p. 173). The votes per party in each municipality are classified under these two political directions. There are political parties that do not belong to any of these categories, because they do not strongly fit in either.
4.1.8 Income
The concept of income makes a distinction based on the average household income in a municipality. It is used as a confounder because in the literature it came up that
there is a positive connection between the compliance to recycling and income. This means that as the income is higher, the recycling will be better, so there will be recycled more. On top of this, it is suggested in literature that there is also a positive relation between income and the total waste. This means that with a higher income, there is more waste to recycle. This makes the effect of income on recycling even bigger.
When operationalized, income is measured as a ratio variable. As it is about the average municipal income, there are no substantial outliers, so the ratio scale can be used. To get to the income, the variable of household income per municipality is used. It is done by household and not by person, because the bias from children will be bigger than the bias by having one or two people in a household bringing in the money when looking municipality wide.
4.2 Case selection
The case selection in this research can be easily described, as all Dutch municipalities are taken into account in the research. For the municipal policy search, May 18 2018 is taken as a cut-off point. At this date, each municipality is checked again if they still have the same policy. The choice for Dutch municipalities is made because of the fact that the research is done in one country, in order to reduce the biases a far as possible. With an international research, the differences between municipalities will be even wider and therefore, the causation is harder to get to. The fact that all municipalities are chosen is because that way, the sample size will be larger and therefore, any outcomes have a bigger change of being reliable.
As said before, the data of the municipalities is all from 2018. However, the data on waste is not available of the year of 2018, or the year of 2017. Therefore, in order to use the most recent data on waste, the data of 2016 will be used. To make a reference over time, the year of 2000 is chosen..This is because at the turn of the century,
recycling was not yet of greatest importance, but it is also not so far away that the two years are incomparable in other aspects too. Because of a national policy to cut costs by reducing the number of municipalities in the Netherlands, there are quite a couple of municipalities that disappeared into other municipalities in the years between 2000 and 2016 (Plasterk, 2013). When there is a comparison over the years, these municipalities will not be taken into account, because it is impossible to calculate which part came from which municipality when looking at the outcome. The data for the political preference comes from the national elections of the year 2017 and the information on income is from 2014, as this is the last year where this information was given
4.3 Data sources
As a main data source, the annual data on municipalities of the Statistics Netherlands, the CBS, are used (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2018), but these data are found in different sources when it come to the political preference (Kiesraad, 2017) or the income variable (VNG Realisatie, 2018). In this, there is data used of all municipalities that existed in either 2000 or 2016. Only the municipalities that exist in 2018 will be used in the research, because these are the municipalities that the waste schemes are known of and coded for. The data that is used is data on the populations of the municipalities in general, such as the size of the municipality and the age of the population, as well as the social benefits.
For data on the waste policy of the municipality, information on each individual municipality is sought, because the existing documents appeared to have mistakes and did not have the division of codes that I ought to have. The information on the municipalities was sometimes found on the websites of the respective municipalities themselves. In other cases, municipalities were joint in a regional tax group. In those cases, the information on the waste schemes and the costs could be found on the
websites of those tax groups. In other cases, the waste schemes were announced in the decentral announcements of the state, where the content of the waste schemes was then also mentioned. The schemes of all current Dutch municipalities could be found online, so for direct contact with the municipalities, that was a backup option, was no need.
Whilst this consumed a lot of time, it gave the opportunity to code the municipalities more precise. The coding is done in such a way that every aspect of the waste scheme is taken into account. In making the distinction between a variable and a fixed scheme, with municipalities with more than one system, the municipality was coded under the variable schemes.
4.3.1 Dependent
The dependent variable is the recycling behavior in the municipalities. With this is meant, the amount of waste that is recycled per person in a municipality, set of against the total waste generation. To generate this, the total waste production of scrap waste, kitchen and garden waste, paper waste, glass, textile, and small chemical waste in kilograms are added up and made into a percentage of the total residual household waste.
4.3.2 Independent
The independent variables are the waste schemes of the municipalities. More specific, the distinction between the variable and the fixed costs waste schemes. In figure 1, this distinction is made and can be seen.
