Summary of paper evaluating the effectiveness of Ontario's Blue Box municipal funding methodology

1.
The relationship between municipal waste diversion
incentivization and recycling system performance
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344915301336
By: Dr. Calvin Lakhan
http://wastewiki.info.yorku.ca/
lakhanc@yorku.ca

2. Overview
• Study examined the effects of municipal recycling
incentivization on municipal recycling rates and program
costs in Ontario (Blue Box)
• 223 Municipalities over a 10 year period
• Study focused on:
• Examine the efficacy of Ontario’s municipal
incentivization model
• Do municipalities respond to financial incentives by
either increasing total recycling or decreasing costs?

3. Methods
• Data obtained from the Waste Diversion Ontario Data Call (223
municipalities over a 10 year period)
• Regression model developed to gauge how current year recycling
rates & program costs are affected by prior year transfer payments
• Variables in the regression include:
RR = Municipal Recycling Rates (%)
PC = Municipal Program Costs ($)
TP = Municipal transfer payments ($)
PE = Municipal promotion and education expenditures (per household) ($)
PAYT = 1 if municipality implements pay as you throw scheme (0 otherwise)
CURB = 1 if municipality implements a curbside recycling system (0 otherwise)
INC = Median income Per Capita ($)
AGE = Median Age
EDUC = % of Population with College education or higher
DEN = Population Density per square kilometer

4. Results
• No relationship between incentives and improved program
performance (measured as either an increase in diversion or
decrease in cost)
• Evidence to suggest the opposite is occurring – recipients of
transfers perform worse over time, while those who are “punished”
for being poor performers continue to experience lower relative
levels of performance

5. Conclusions
• Serious questions regarding the efficacy of Ontario’s
municipal funding methodology
• No evidence to suggest municipal incentives encourage
waste diversion or reduce program costs
• Stakeholder perception surrounding the efficacy of the
incentive model is largely negative

6. Conclusions
• Serious questions regarding the efficacy of Ontario’s
municipal funding methodology
• No evidence to suggest municipal incentives encourage
waste diversion or reduce program costs
• Stakeholder perception surrounding the efficacy of the
incentive model is largely negative