Status and prospects of pay-as-you-throw in Europe – A review of pilot research and implementation studies

Over the past 20 years, significant advances have been made in developing efficient schemes to charge households for their actual waste generation. Viable fee models and technical solutions which are applicable to different environments and provide waste generators with individual incentives for waste diversion efforts have increased the recognition of pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) as an effective instrument for recycling-oriented waste management and financing. On this basis, PAYT has become a practical reality in an increasing number of countries in Europe. Even countries with traditional reservations for direct charging have started to make consideration of PAYT in the revision of their national policy programmes. A situational analysis performed at the European level showed that detailed insights regarding the concrete reactions, red flags and wider benefits inherent to such scheme may still have to be further dispersed in order to overcome the caveats on PAYT and eventually adopt the approach on a larger scale. Claims that the results of PAYT applications are only local in meaning can be disproved as many of the developments bear universal character and can be verified even for larger territories using such schemes in different ways. Including results from an international research co-operation and comparative studies conducted in Germany, this article examines the state-of-the-art of PAYT and shades light onto some of the generally observed implications of its implementation. In conclusion, an outlook on the further potentials and propagation of this scheme is given.