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Separate waste collection in Italy: the role of socio-cultural factors and targets set by law

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Abstract

The aim of this paper was twofold: on the one hand, we analyse the results achieved in terms of percentages of separate collection in Italy by testing the effectiveness of Legislative Decree 152/2006 in improving the separate collection process; and on the other hand, we investigate on some of the factors, related to the sociocultural local context, that could explain the different impacts of the law in the three macro-areas considered (North, Central and South Italy). To this purpose, an econometric analysis on the Italian regions for the 1996–2013 period is performed, comparing the period before (1996–2006) and after (2006–2013) the date of entry into force of the new law. The results show the effectiveness of Legislative Decree 152/2006 in promoting separate collection, although a regional difference in terms of separate collection rate is observed. Northern regions proved to be more dynamic and reactive to the above-mentioned legislation, while Central and especially Southern regions achieved poorer results in moving to higher separate waste collection rates. Finally, our work provides evidence on some local factors that may have hampered an effective policy implementation in Southern regions, among them, the presence of criminal activities and the lack of citizen participation in politics.

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Notes

  1. http://www.isprambiente.gov.it/en/ISPRA (Accessed November 2015).

  2. By “absorbing state”, we mean that the probability of the region subsequently exiting that state is close to zero.

  3. The region-specific variable, time-invariant and activated by regional dummy, captures how each region deviates from the average structural relationship common to all regions (the regional fixed effect).

  4. It is the time-specific variable, activated by time dummies, useful to purify the structural relationship, which is common to all regions, from cyclical variations that are also common to all regions.

  5. The Northern regions are our benchmark.

  6. As for the OCMR variable we only have data for the period 2005–2010, for this reason we do not include this variable among the regressors in the analysis conducted in the previous section. Its use would not allow us to calculate the dummy related to L.D. 152/06 and, consequently, to evaluate its effectiveness.

  7. http://www.istat.it/it/archivio/16782 (Accessed November 2015).

  8. For the FPIP variable, we have data exclusively for the 2005–2010 period.

  9. FPIP is an indicator provided by ISTAT. This indicator is on the I.Stat homepage. I.Stat is the warehouse of statistics currently produced by the Italian National Institute of Statistics. The system is based on the OECD data warehouse technology (OECD.Stat), a software and statistical services platform also used by Istat (I.Stat). Data are organized in a coherent and homogeneous way and are constantly upgraded (http://dati.istat.it/?lang=en, Accessed November 2015).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economic and Legal Studies, University of Naples “Parthenope”, Naples, Italy

    Massimiliano Agovino, Antonio Garofalo & Angela Mariani

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  1. Massimiliano Agovino
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  2. Antonio Garofalo
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  3. Angela Mariani
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Correspondence to Massimiliano Agovino.

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Agovino, M., Garofalo, A. & Mariani, A. Separate waste collection in Italy: the role of socio-cultural factors and targets set by law. Environ Dev Sustain 19, 589–605 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-015-9754-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-015-9754-7

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