A stochastic frontier analysis of the efficiency of municipal solid waste collection services in China

Abstract

Governments in many developing countries, such as China, are investing a lot of human, financial and material resources to ensure that as much of municipal solid waste (MSW) as possible is collected for centralized harmless treatment and disposal. This is regarded as an effective way to alleviate the “waste siege” problem in governance caused by the continuous enormous increase in MSW quantity. Therefore, how to improve the efficiency of MSW collection service system is an important governance issue because the inputs that can be utilized to manage MSW problem are limited due to budget and resource constraints. However, studies on MSW collection efficiency in developing countries like China are under-represented in the existing literature. This paper applies a stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) approach to evaluate the efficiency of MSW collection services in 30 provinces of China from 2008 to 2017, and explore the relative importance of several factors that might influence collection efficiency. The results indicate that there exists considerable room (62.8%) to enhance efficiency since its current efficiency value is merely 0.372. With regard to influencing factors, the proportion of population aged 15–64 appears to have the greatest positive impact on efficiency, along with per capita GDP, added value of tertiary industry and education level. This paper also explores spatial variations of MSW collection efficiency across the eastern, central and western regions. These findings have policy implications and can inform the related government departments how to formulate proper policies to improve collection efficiency.