Sustainable solid waste management in the European Union: Four countries regional analysis

Abstract

The EU has framed a comprehensive regulatory action aimed at shifting Waste Management towards Sustainable Waste Management. This paper aims to examine how EU legislation, starting from the 2008 Waste Framework Directive, has been implemented at the regional level, and to assess the leading and lagging regions in the transition towards sustainable municipal waste management. The study uses Data Envelopment Analysis to analyze 75 NUTS-2 regions from four EU Member States: Italy, France, Germany and the Netherlands over the period 2008–2013. The results shows that regions in Germany and the Netherlands have moved away from landfill to a greater extent, in favor of higher recycling rates. Conversely, Italy and France regions are these displaying lower performances but with progressive improvement. It is shown that regions with still very low waste collection volumes will have to accelerate the process in order to align with EU targets. In this concern, a burden-sharing system might be advisable.