Ricerc@Sapienza

The municipal waste management is an essential public service (Italian Law no. 146/1990): its rational and efficient organization assumes considerable importance for the well-being of citizens and environmental sustainability. Despite the importance of this service, the scientific literature on the municipal solid waste costs is rather limited. This research is aimed at understanding which factors influence the municipal solid waste costs in Italy. This country presents some typical features that make the management of the service even more problematic, such as low compliance with environmental law (low separate collection rate, especially in the southern regions) and the infiltration of organized crime in the waste disposal, a critical phase of the industry being characterized by an infrastructure insufficiency. These variables have never been considered in previous literature regarding municipal solid waste costs and this research aims to fill this gap. Therefore, this research is aimed at understanding which factors influence the municipal solid waste costs. In addition to organized crime and the compliance with environmental law, we will consider the key predictors of municipal solid waste costs, such as the quantity of waste produced, the population density, the presence on the territory of treatment and disposal plants, the ownership structure of the company providing the service and the type of service management.
The analysis of the cost drivers for the service of municipal solid waste is worthy of study because the new waste tax (Tassa Rifiuti or TARI), determined by the Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks and the Environment (ARERA) in 2019, will have to be cost-reflective. Therefore, this topic is relevant both from the point of view of the policy maker who must achieve a financially balanced budget through efficient administration and from the point of view of the citizen who bears the costs of service through the waste tax.