Designing Pay-As-You-Throw schemes in municipal waste management services: A holistic approach

• Pay-As-You-Throw (PAYT) schemes are becoming widespread in several countries.
• Economic, organizational and technological issues have to be integrated in an efficient PAYT model design.
• Efficiency refers to a PAYT system which support high citizen participation rates as well as economic sustainability.
• Different steps and constraints have to be evaluated from collection services to type technologies.
• An holistic approach is discussed to support PAYT systems diffusion.

Pay-As-You-Throw (PAYT) strategies are becoming widely applied in solid waste management systems; the main purpose is to support a more sustainable – from economic, environmental and social points of view – management of waste flows. Adopting PAYT charging models increases the complexity level of the waste management service as new organizational issues have to be evaluated compared to flat charging models. In addition, innovative technological solutions could also be adopted to increase the overall efficiency of the service. Unit pricing, user identification and waste measurement represent the three most important processes to be defined in a PAYT system. The paper proposes a holistic framework to support an effective design and management process. The framework defines most critical processes and effective organizational and technological solutions for supporting waste managers as well as researchers.