Hierarchical Disjoint Non-Negative Factor Analysis: environment and waste management in the EU

The management of the waste keeps improving in the EU, many estimations tell us that half of that waste is not collected, treated or safely disposed of. In this paper we propose a CI for quality and efficiency of waste collection and management in Europe by using a model-based approach. The model has a hierarchical structure formed by factors associated to subsets of manifest variables with positive loadings. This approach guarantees to comply with all the good properties on which an indicator - summarising a multidimensional phenomenon - should be based. Moreover the hierarchical structure allows us to find a set of specific composite indicators which are unidimensional and reliable which identify specific dimensions of waste management.