Life cycle assessment of a national policy proposal - The case of a Swedish waste incineration tax

Journal Article · Sun Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2007 · Waste Management

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2007.02.027· OSTI ID:21023884

Finnveden, Goeran ^[1]

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1. Division of Environmental Strategies Research - fms, Royal Institute of Technology, Drottning Kristinas vaeg 30 III, SE-100 44, Stockholm (Sweden)

At the core of EU and Swedish waste policy is the so-called waste hierarchy, according to which waste should first be prevented, but should otherwise be treated in the following order of prioritisation: reuse, recycling when environmentally motivated, energy recovery, and last landfilling. Some recent policy decisions in Sweden aim to influence waste management in the direction of the waste hierarchy. In 2001 a governmental commission assessed the economic and environmental impacts of introducing a weight-based tax on waste incineration, the purpose of which would be to encourage waste reduction and increase materials recycling and biological treatment. This paper presents the results of a life cycle assessment (LCA) of the waste incineration tax proposal. It was done in the context of a larger research project concerning the development and testing of a framework for Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). The aim of this paper is to assess the life cycle environmental impacts of the waste incineration tax proposal, and to investigate whether there are any possibilities of more optimal design of such a tax. The proposed design of the waste incineration tax results in increased recycling, but only in small environmental improvements. A more elaborate tax design is suggested, in which the tax level would partly be related to the fossil carbon content of the waste.

• OSTI ID: 21023884
• Journal Information: Waste Management, Journal Name: Waste Management Journal Issue: 8 Vol. 27; ISSN WAMAE2; ISSN 0956-053X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
COMBUSTION
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT
RECYCLING
SWEDEN
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTES