Measuring and explaining the cost efficiency of municipal solid waste collection and processing services

This paper proposes an adjusted version of the popular efficiency measurement technique data envelopment analysis (DEA) that makes it possible (1) to evaluate the cost efficiency of municipalities in the collection and processing of multiple household waste fractions, (2) robustifying the cost efficiency evaluations for the impact of measurement errors in the data or municipalities with outlying and atypical performances (if present in the sample set), and (3) to correct the evaluations for differences in the operating environments of municipalities (e.g., factors such as demography and median income of the municipality population). The paper illustrates the usefulness of the methodology by carrying out and analyzing a cost efficiency evaluation using data on 293 municipalities in Flanders, Belgium, for the year 2008.

► Complexity in local waste management calls for more in-depth efficiency analysis.
► Robust and conditional version of the shared input DEA-model can provide solution.
► Growing diversification in waste fractions justifies the use of a shared input version of the DEA method.
► Accounting for different and non-controllable background conditions, provides argument in favour of the reliability of results.