Evaluating the Swedish Producer Responsibility for Packaging Materials: Policy Design and Outcome

During the last decades the promotion of recycling of used packaging materials has become an integral part of environmental policy. In 1994, a producer responsibility ordinance was introduced for different packaging materials in Sweden. The overall purposes of this thesis are to: (a) evaluate the design – and primarily the cost-effectiveness – of this waste management regime, and (b) attempt to explain differences in collection rate outcomes across Swedish municipalities. The thesis consists of an introductory part and two self-contained papers. Paper [1] outlines a theoretical model that is designed to link the necessary conditions for a cost effective waste management policy to specific policy designs. The main purpose of the paper is to make use of this model and analyze the incentive structure and the effectiveness of the Swedish producer responsibility ordinance in the empirical context of paper packaging. A secondary purpose is to discuss if the empirical evidence suggests that an alternative waste management regime, i.e., the so-called UCTS-system, could be more effective. According to the results, both the Swedish producer responsibility scheme and the UCTS system fulfill two important cost effectiveness conditions. The packaging fee in the present Swedish system an