Politics and markets: the case of UK municipal waste management

From a service owned and provided by local government, UK municipal waste management has become one increasingly provided by large multinational companies. A series of political decisions laid the basis for the shift. It began with the programme of deregulation, contracting out and privatisation introduced by the Conservative governments of the 1980s. New Labour continued this process with the cumulative result that a new market in municipal waste exists today. Its development has also influenced the shape of the already existing wider waste management market with the result that this too has seen a process of concentration. A vertically integrated sector under municipal ownership was broken up and now appears to be heading for a vertical reintegration of the sector on the basis of private sector ownership. With the UK government’s rejection of a public sector option, it is obliged to make a series of complicated interventions to attempt to further shape the market in order to meet environmental policy goals. The reliance on the market illustrates the difficulties in implementing major policy shifts through that medium