Driving forces in the success of municipal solid waste recycling practices: results from a comparative study

Background Every year in the European Community 1.3 billion tons of waste is produced. The Eurostat data from 1995 to 2003 are likely to relate the increase of wealth, due to industrial development and living conditions improvement as well with other social and participation determinants, with the increase in waste production. Data referring to Italian regions show a situation of limited effectiveness of the current policies implemented to tackle the municipal solid waste management, with a relevant discrepancy between regions. The aim of this work is to identify and assess the role of social and economic determinants on the success of political and Public Health governance, regarding the management of solid urban waste. Methods From a literature review of primary and institutional sources we identified and collected a set of regional indicators: economical-social context, industrial productivity, environ- mental governance, consumption (household), empowerment, accessibility. Data have been processed through the correlation test of Spearman’s rank-adjusted Bonferroni (P < 0.05). Results The analysis shows statistically significant correlation between the waste recycling rate with: the fabric production (r = 0.8872) and the accessibility of the citizen to separate collection of paper (r = 0.8253), glass (r = 0.8752), drugs (r = 0.8161), aluminium (r = 0.9216), plastic (r = 0.8838) or other materials (r = 0.8376) respectively. Furthermore, the correlation is relevant both in relation to the tariffs on final manage- ment (r = 0.8647) both compared with the empowerment (r = 0.7949) and in particular to the ‘development capacity of social services’ (r = 0.8309). Conclusions As a result of the impact factor that recycling practices play on the environment, its success takes on a basic value in relation to virtuous environmental governance. Structural requirements (expression of accessibility to the collectors) can’t be the only determinant of environmental policy success, as the empowerment of individual citizens and/or of the community represents a fundamental aspect to take more on consideration.