Household response to the loss of publicly provided waste removal: a Saskatchewan case study

Abstract

Literature has shown that if households bear the cost of waste disposal, they buy products with less packaging, recycle more, and reduce their contributions to landfills. However, data disclose that there is a great deal of variability in these responses. A case study conducted in Saskatchewan reveals that, when households were forced to bear the costs of disposal during a waste-removal strike, waste to landfills was only slightly reduced. A threshold price of $2.20 per trip to a landfill was calculated that indicates that if costs of waste disposal are higher than this amount, individuals are predicted to transport their waste to the landfills themselves. This low threshold price indicates that alternative waste-disposal options for Saskatchewan residents were cheap, thereby causing the increased costs to households to have little influence on the amount of waste discarded. Under these circumstances, economic instruments may have little effect on households' waste-reduction behavior.