Estimation of garbage reduction and recycling promotion under the Containers and Packaging Recycling Law and garbage pricing

This article examines the reducing and recycling effects caused by municipal solid waste policies, such as garbage pricing and recyclables collection. Equations for garbage and recyclables are estimated using Heckman’s two-step estimation and seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) to consider sample selection bias and the correlation between garbage and recyclables emission. The estimation results suggest that municipal PET bottle collection leads to a reduction in the amount of garbage collected. Furthermore, the results reveal that garbage pricing increases the quantity of PET bottles collected, while it decreases the amount of garbage. Copyright Springer Japan 2007