Economic aspects - Landfill Externalities

In recent decades, increased awareness has developed regarding landfills' potential damage to the environment. This has led to the creation of strict regulations on types of waste entering landfills, to better planning, infrastructure, and management of landfills along with quantifying, in monetary terms, the externalities associated with landfills. The chapter describes the environmental impacts of landfills and the economic methods used to assess and attach a price tag to emissions to air, land, and water as well as the disamenities related to the mere existence of a landfill. The rate of the landfill tax, originally calculated on the basis of estimated externalities, was set to differentiate between types of landfilled waste. The main conclusion is that a landfill tax is an economic instrument that enables policy makers to promote a certain environmental policy.